Assessing the Relationship between Cognitive Workload, Workstation Design, User Acceptance and Trust in Collaborative Robots

Abstract

Collaborative robots are revolutionising the manufacturing industry and the way workers perform their tasks. When designing shared workspaces between robots and humans, human factors and ergonomics are often overlooked. This study assessed the relationship between cognitive workload, workstation design, user acceptance and trust in collaborative robots. We combined subjective and objective data to evaluate the cognitive workload during an assembly task in three different scenarios in which we manipulated various features of the workstation and interaction modalities. Our results showed that participants experienced a reduction in cognitive workload in each of the three trials, indicating an improvement in cognitive performance. Additionally, we found that user acceptance predicted perceived stress across the trials but did not significantly impact the cognitive workload. Trust was not found to moderate the relationship between cognitive workload and perceived stress. This study has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of collaborative assembly systems by providing valuable insights and helping to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. This study can potentially impact companies looking to improve safety, productivity and efficiency.

Keywords

• human–robot collaboration
• cognitive workload
• technology acceptance
• trust
• workstation