Conception of a Robotic Digital Shadow in Augmented Reality for Enhanced Human-Robot Interaction

A major factor for a successful interaction between a human and a robot is mutual trust and awareness for the situation. However, a robot is often perceived by humans as a moving and complex black box, which does not foster acceptance. Consequently, the research work published in this paper deals with the conceptional aspects and integration of a robotic digital shadow in Augmented Reality (AR). The objective is to foster acceptance between humans and robots, to raise awareness and to enhance the efficiency as well as effectiveness of collaborative efforts. Therefore, the challenges associated with the implementation of human-robot interaction for robot programming and live operations in AR are addressed. The paper discusses essential conceptional strategies, technological considerations and the resulting impact on the interaction between humans and robots, especially in a human-robot collaboration. In the theoretical part, an outline of the current status of the necessity and added value of such work is provided. The practical part conceptually describes the planned future implementation of the robotic digital shadow. ROS is used for robot programming and Unity for AR programming. A UR10e from Universal Robots will be linked later as the robot system with a Microsoft HoloLens 2 as the AR system. A key aspect of setting up such a system is the architecture and the communication process as well as flow between the devices. This also includes the workspace calibration of the robot and the AR device. As a result, the necessary main pillars and further necessities of a possible implementation for a robotic digital shadow in AR were demonstrated.