Fostering Trust through Gesture and Voice-Controlled Robot Trajectories in Industrial Human-Robot Collaboration

In the Industry 5.0 era, the focus shifts from basic automation to fostering collaboration between humans and robots. Trust is crucial in this new paradigm, enabling smooth interaction, especially for users with limited robotics knowledge. This study presents a novel framework that uses human hand gestures and voice commands to control robot movements, aiming to enhance trust, reduce cognitive workload, and minimize task execution time—key for efficient manufacturing. In automated systems, swift completion of micromanagement tasks is essential to prevent process disruption. To evaluate this framework, we devised a testbed scenario within an automated carbon fiber transportation and draping process, focusing on a maintenance task as the micromanagement challenge. Participants inspected the gripper, guided the robot along a defined path, and performed maintenance, such as attaching cables. Two conditions were tested: gestures and voice commands versus a smartPAD. The results showed that gestures and voice commands increased trust, lowered cognitive load, and shortened execution times, improving overall manufacturing efficiency.