Human factors and ergonomics

Mood and emotion are considered distinct phenomena, yet there is a general lack of consensus within the scientific community concerning their definition. Leveraging on a physiology-based definition of these phenomena and their relation, we propose a concept design to define a real-time real-world positive mood supporting application. In particular, the application will be provided through wearable and portable devices, and comprise different blocks related to the user profiling, the identification of proper mood stimuli based on the users' responses, and a mood detection system.

Keywords: Ecological momentary assessment , Emotion recognition , Mood detection , Wearable sensors

Knowledge of the cognitive processes underlying engineering design is essential for its comprehensive understanding and subsequent enhancement of the field. This paper contributes to building this knowledge by investigating the brain activity of engineering designers engaged in three visuospatial reasoning tasks of the Purdue Spatial Visualization Test (PSVT). These tasks assess three critical visuospatial factors for engineering design: spatial visualization, mental rotation, and spatial orientation. Brain activity is measured using electroencephalography (EEG) as a non-invasive neuroimaging method. The EEG results reveal significant differences in brain activity between the three tasks, considering three frequency bands (theta, alpha, and beta) and 14 electrodes spatially distributed across two hemispheres and seven cortical areas. Theta and beta task-related power (TRP) appear to be crucial in distinguishing among the visuospatial reasoning tasks at the neurocognitive level.

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, businesses across various industries face a critical challenge: maintaining and enhancing the quality of both their processes and the products they deliver. Traditionally, this task has been tackled through manual analysis, statistical methods, and domain expertise. However, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, new opportunities have emerged to revolutionize quality optimization. This chapter explores the process and product quality optimization in a real industrial use case with the help of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) techniques. While AI algorithms have proven their effectiveness in improving quality, one of the longstanding barriers to their widespread adoption has been the lack of interpretability and transparency in their decision-making processes. XAI addresses this concern by enabling human stakeholders to understand and trust the outcomes of AI models, thereby empowering them to make informed decisions and take effective actions. © The Author(s) 2024.

Keywords: Data driven manufacturing application , eXplainable AI (XAI) , Human-AI teaming , Manufacturing , Production process optimization

The analysis and correction of working postures is an essential practice in industry. Discomforting postures and repetitive tasks could cause strain, fatigue, musculoskeletal disorders, pains, and injuries, reducing worker productivity. Several normative standards provide tools and methods for observation, evaluation, and solving critical ergonomic situations. The workstation assessment often requires the study of the actions and postures of each operator related to each task and each repetitive cycle. In the context of assembly line workstations, a common task is the material picking from storage shelving. The ergonomic evaluation of shelving for lineside temporary parts storage is focused on the layout, location of each part container, and picking frequencies. An ergonomic evaluation in the shelving design phase could reduce the risk of repetitive and poor working postures, producing benefits for the operators. The paper proposes a parametric optimization tool based on a Genetic Algorithm to reduce the ergonomic risks related to the picking phase from light shelves employed in assembly lines. RULA and OWAS methods are used to perform the ergonomic evaluation of different configurations of shelves during the optimization analysis. As a test case, the design of a light shelving is proposed considering the time and assembly cycle of fitness bikes.

Keywords: Design optimization , Ergonomics , Genetic algorithm , Industrial shelving , OWAS , RULA

Robotic surgery, also known as robotic-assisted surgery (RAS), has rapidly evolved during the last decade. RAS systems are developed to assist surgeons to perform complex minimally invasive surgeries, and necessitate augmented interfaces for precise execution of these image-guided procedures. Extended Reality (XR) technologies, augmenting the real-world perception via integrating digital contents, show promise in enhancing RAS efficacy in various studies. Despite multiple reviews on technological and medical aspects, the crucial elements of human-robot interaction (HRI) and user experience (UX) remain underexplored. This review fills this gap by elucidating HRI dynamics within XR-aided RAS systems, emphasizing their impact on UX and overall surgical outcomes. By synthesizing existing literature, this systematic review study identifies challenges and opportunities, paving the way for improved XR-enhanced robotic surgery, ultimately enhancing patient care and surgical performance.

Keywords: extended reality , human-computer interaction , robotic-assisted surgery , surgical robots , user experience

In product design fields where the demand for an efficient usability is critical to its final success, it is essential to integrate user requirements into the design process from the earliest design stages. Particularly in the medical context, it is essential to systematically control the design phases in order not to neglect the strict constraints related to engineering design quality, safety, and usability requirements for the end user. Hence, in this work, an integrated user-centered product design and process simulation method is proposed. This method is aimed at enriching the state of the art in integrated product design and process simulation in the early design stages, as well as providing a novel design example of a device thought for medical contexts. The case study consists in the design of an intercom, aimed at improving patient-doctor communication in the case of bedridden patients on with helmet for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy during COVID-19 pandemic emergency. Patients undergoing helmet-assisted ventilation are often immersed in a highly noisy environment, unable to fully communicate their needs to the doctors. Intercom devices are addressed to the doctors for improving ease communication with the patient. The proposed user-centered design for manufacturing and assembly proved to be efficient in such a complex design context.

Keywords: Integrated product and process design method , Process simulation , User-centered design

The need, due to road safety reasons, to constantly monitor the physiological conditions of a driver (stress, concentration, fatigue) as well as the alterations to the comfort state of the driving position in long-haul journey, has led many car manufacturers to focus attention on the development of innovative technologies and methods that include the monitoring of biosignals that can be acquired by the driver himself. The possibility of detecting and processing such a signal in real time was the object of this research, which allowed to produce a technology that exploited the analysis of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), a method widely used in clinical field for the analysis of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) with respect to daily biological rhythm stress, comfort or vigilance. While the conventional cardiac signal acquisition system uses clinical instruments such as the electrocardiograph (ECG), in this study a technique is developed that allows the detection and processing of the pulsation signal at the level of the femoral artery through a sensor placed on the driver's seat. The main advantage consists in having a control in real time by avoiding the application of sensors on the skin. In fact, three fundamental parameters: the heart rate (HR), the interval between beats (RRI) and the typical HRV indices are determined, by using a suitable signal analysis algorithm. The comparison with equivalent values obtained by a conventional ECG device shows a Pearson correlation between 0.35 to and 0.94. This may be of a great help in evaluating thesympathovagal balance.

Keywords: HCD , HRV , RRI

Preface and Acknowledgements (Editorial)

Keywords: Editorial

Objective and reliable assessment of motor functions, such as dexterity, is a key point for evaluating worker's abilities. In this context, the proposed work presents a tool for objective automatic assessment of the Minnesota Dexterity Test using cameras with depth sensors. Typical performance measurements (i.e., total time and associated percentiles) were estimated using custom algorithms. In addition, the possibility to identify the qualifiers for the code d440 of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health was implemented in the developed algorithms. The proposed tool can also identify the mistakes most frequently committed by the subjects. To prove the capabilities of the proposed method, a series of experimental trials was conducted with 10 healthy young volunteers. Results showed that the developed tool helps clinicians to obtain performance feedback and evaluate patients' dexterity quickly without bias.

Keywords: Automatic assessment , Biomechanics , Depth cameras , Manual dexterity , Motion capture

This paper presents the use of surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals for the actuation of soft pneumatic artificial muscles. The idea behind this paper is finding a relationship between a natural muscle and an artificial muscle, do it through an analysis of the sEMG data. We start from the characterization of a specific soft pneumatic artificial muscle and we relate the root mean square value of the sEMG signal to the contraction of the actuator itself. This work might pave the way for the development of intuitive wearable interfaces for the actuation of soft robots.

Keywords: Human biosignal , Soft actuators , Surface electromyographic sensors , Wearable technologies

Day by day, more and more people get in touch with user interface (UI) development matters, since user experience (UX) and, as a direct consequence, user-centered design (UCD) gain importance in establishing the success of products on the market or, simply, because users feel the need to interact with products easier and more directly. In the last years, affordable UI development tools have appeared on the market, freeing apprentices from owning specific skill and knowledge and boosting interactive activities by allowing different competencies to work in synergy. This research exploits the experience where university students - the apprentices - use several affordable tools to develop the UI of a refrigerator. Pointing out the opportunities and criticalities encountered during the experience allows highlighting those variables to consider in selecting the most suitable tools already on the market as well as in developing new ones, all of this aiming at a sort of “discount UI development”.

Keywords: Affordable user interface development tools , Discount user interface development , User experience design , User experience evaluation

eXtended Reality (XR) technology can enhance the visitors' experience of museums. Due to the variety of XR technologies available that differ in performance, quality of the experience they provide, and cost, it is helpful to refer to the evaluation of the various technologies performed through user studies to select the most suitable ones. This paper presents a set of empirical studies on XR application for museums to select the appropriate technologies to meet visitors' expectations and maximise the willingness of repeating and recommending the experience. They provide valuable insights for developing Virtual Museum applications increasing the level of presence and experience economy.

Keywords: Extended reality , Multisensory experience , Sense of smell , User experience , Virtual museum

In recent days product design and review cycles are considerably held to many constraints and requirements. One of the main requirements regards the usability of solutions and the impact that design choices have on final users. Therefore, it is becoming crucial to anticipate human factors concerns in the preliminary phases of product development process. Also, since human factors affect the users subconsciously and influence the decision making in a significant way, they need to be enabled to observe the users while interacting with the product in real-time. In this framework, the platform that the human factors expert and the users use plays a vital role in influencing the human factor assessments and evaluations. Latest developments in Extended Reality opened the way toward the possibility to conceive new simulation platforms that allow experts to deeply explore the products in real-time through collaborative and interactive environments before the physical mockup of the product. The purpose of this paper is to outline a Mixed Reality (MR) tool in the field of aircraft interior design to demonstrate it as a potential co-creative platform for involving human factor experts in the loop while the task is ongoing. An MR multi-user, co-located, collaborative and interactive environment of an aircraft galley is developed where the HF specialist and flight crew member can co-exist to visualize the real scale model of the galley and perform an operational task. Such co-creative tool is foreseen to execute usability tests during design review phase and reduce time, costs of product development cycle while meeting the user requirements.

Keywords: Co-creation , Design review , Human factors and ergonomics , Mixed reality

Collaborative robots (cobots) are designed to directly interact with human beings within a shared workspace. To minimize the risk of musculoskeletal disease for the workers, a physical ergonomic assessment of their interaction is needed. Virtual reality (VR) and motion capture (Mocap) systems can aid designers in building low-hazard collaborative environments. This work presents a framework based on VR and Mocap systems for the ergonomic evaluation of collaborative robotic workstations. Starting from the 3D models of the cobot and workstation components, a virtual environment is built in Unity and ROS is employed to manage the cobot behavior. The physical ergonomics is evaluated by means of RULA methodology, exploiting the body tracking capabilities of the device Kinect Azure, a low-cost markerless Mocap system. The framework has been tested by building a virtual environment for collaborative control of flanges with different diameters. The worker interacts with a six-axis Nyro One to move parts on the workstation. The ergonomic assessment is performed in real-time, and a report is generated for later uses and evaluations. The proposed framework fosters the design of collaborative robotics workstations based on an objective assessment of ergonomics. The results of this research work allow planning future development steps for the emulation of more complex workstations with cobots and the use of augmented reality to evaluate how to modify existing workstations to introduce a cobot.

Keywords: Collaborative robots , Ergonomics , Motion capture , Virtual reality

The building design sector can benefit from the new opportunities offered by studies investigating people's perception of urban and architectural spaces. It emerges from the literature that certain elements of environment settings and buildings such as edges, landmarks and materials can affect perception. However, their impact on people's visual perception is still unclear, also because of the difficulty to report consciously what has been experienced. Technologies and tools such as mobile eye tracking (ET) give a chance to get insights into visual behaviors in real environments. In this work, the authors had the chance to conduct an experiment, where ET was used in a physical space of a tiny house prototype, which was the result of a research-industry cooperation project about real-world laboratories. An experimental activity involved 26 volunteers, who were asked to visit and freely observe the interior of the tiny house wearing ET glasses and fill in an evaluation questionnaire at the end of the visit. The first-view experience recordings of each visit of the tiny house were thereafter processed to acquire data to be put in relation with questionnaires' outcomes. Preliminary statistical analysis showed potential relationships between areas of interest (AOIs), namely distinguishable elements of the tiny house, data, and evaluations. The time spent on some AOIs positively or negatively affected the evaluation reported by the questionnaire. It is also worth noting that, surprisingly, some AOIs deemed to be secondary affected the questionnaire ratings more significantly than the core qualities of the tiny house.

Keywords: Buildings , Design , Eye tracking , Sustainability , User perception

The development of cutting-edge technologies in the industrial sector has led to the demand for increasingly specific tools in the optimization of efficiency problems. The automotive sector is the one that makes the most use of these technologies, such as, among all, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). A virtual reality tool is inserted as a guide tool for the user in drawing as quickly as possible the key information for optimizing the process. This research work fits into this context, the goal of which was the implementation of an immersive platform for carrying out accurate measurements within an entirely virtual automotive environment. A VR system of this type allows to check the dimensional and shape tolerances of car components, performing measurement, with high precision and in real time, in a custom-made virtual environment, in which it is possible to simulate the presence of a myriad of components and test their mutual interaction. A comparative test was carried out, obtained by varying the graphical and geometrical model in the VR settings, in order to evaluate the level of usability and the degree of efficiency of a tool for measuring distances between objects in a virtual reality environment, depending on the system parameters. The validation of a measurement instrument in VR is part of an increasingly current technological context in which the need to optimize the time-cost curve embraces the need for increasingly accurate results.

Keywords: Assembly training , Tolerance measurements , Virtual reality

According to the Industry 5.0 framework, the smart factory should combine digitalization and prediction activities with a greater sustainability and human centrality within working processes. Indeed, the optimization and improvement of the manufacturing processes have to meet cost criteria related to energy consumption, safety, and implementation of new technologies. The development of better and more advanced technologies boosts Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in the manufacturing processes. However, due to the high number of safety standards about collaborative robotics and the absence of tools and specific design approaches, collaborative robots (cobots) are still widely adopted as traditional industrial robots wasting the huge potential of a properly Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). The layout designing is a crucial activity in achieving a proper and effective HRC. This work illustrates how to transfer standard-compliant layout solutions towards an interactive three-dimensional (3D) visualization environment in order to enable the digital prototyping of HRC workplaces. The possibility to automatically generate and visualize multiple layout solutions of collaborative workplaces, and then, to simulate the interaction between human and robot, represents one of the most significant tasks during the designing process. HRC workplace layout is designed according to an optimization criterion, by using the full integration of a numerical computing platform with an interactive 3D visualization environment. Then, by means of the variation of the input parameters, the visualization of new layout solutions is enabled in a fast and effective way.

Keywords: Human-robot collaboration , Industry 5.0 , Interactive prototyping , Workplace layout

For the sake of being competitive in an ever-changing market, industrial companies need a redefinition of traditional design and integration of parts, equipment, and services such a redefinition allows effectively addressing the interaction between machines and operators, particularly in the area of complex production lines. In this context, enhancing ergonomics is crucial to reduce fatigue and stress of workers and increase work-place efficiency and comfort. Moreover, identifying ergonomic flaws in three-dimensional human-machine design problems (e.g., body posture, reach, visibility) at an early stage of the engineering process allows to prevent these issues at a low cost. Virtual reality (VR) is emerging as a powerful tool to improve the ergonomic assessment in the design of complex production lines. However, VR is not yet a well-consolidated practice for industrial companies, and the state-of-the-art applications are limited to simplified, isolated, and customized experiments. This work proposes the use of a virtual golden zone (VGZ) as a standard and efficient VR method for the ergonomic analysis and optimization of operator activities in manual manufacturing stations. The resulting effectiveness and benefits are highlighted through the application of the approach to a real industrial case study. Finally, the outcomes of a usability questionnaire, compiled by the professionals involved in the VR reviews, are presented to evaluate the usability of the VGZ methodology in the design process of complex production lines.

Keywords: Complex production lines , Ergonomics , Human computer interaction , Virtual reality

In the ever-changing scenario of technology evolution, designers need to develop new interactive systems that respond to users' needs. Augmented Reality (AR) could be a tool and an opportunity for designers to create novel interactive systems. AR has proven to be effective in several domains, showing potential for widespread deployment even in everyday life tasks such as the use of household appliances. Thus, leveraging the Human-Centred Design (HCD) approach, we integrate AR into the design and development process of an interactive system for household appliances. Based on our survey results with 463 participants, one of the appliances that could benefit most from AR is the kitchen machine. Starting from a case study, we develop a demo to prove the feasibility of designing interactive systems with the integration of AR technologies, following the HCD approach.

Keywords: Augmented Reality , Human-Centred Design , Industrial Design , Interactive System , User Interface

Confined spaces cause fatal and serious injuries that tragically recur with similar dynamics every year. A survey carried out on the Italian territory by the National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work on the years from 2001 to 2019 shows that a total of 184 accidents occurred in confined spaces mostly because workers were poorly informed and trained, the risk assessment lacking, and that the provisions of the law were not respected. Often fatal events affect those involved in the primary incident and those who intervene in an attempt to assist. Consequently, it is necessary to apply a proper training process and extend it to all those involved in operations both inside and next to confined spaces. Traditionally, the training approach consists of classroom lectures and simulations in real environments. However, real simulation scenarios are costly and time-consuming as real scenarios training simulations require expensive purpose-built physical simulators. To overcome these limitations, we designed and implemented an Immersive Virtual Reality based platform to support and enforce the traditional confined space safety training approach. Finally, we defined an experimental validation procedure.

Keywords: Confined spaces , Immersive Virtual Reality , Safety training , Usability , Work safety