Thomas Meneweger from the Center for Human-Computer Interaction attended IEEE RO-MAN 2015, the 24th International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. RO-MAN 2015 took place in Kobe, Japan, from August 31th to September 4th. This years’ conference theme was “Interaction with Socially Embedded Robots”.
Thomas gave a talk on “Working Together with Industrial Robots: Experiencing Robots in a Production Environment”. In his talk, Thomas presented the findings of a narrative interview study conducted with workers in a semi-conductor factory. Relying on workers’ reports of their personal experiences, we found that daily work with industrial robots can be described along the four themes: rivalry with the robots, adaption towards the robot’s behavior, perceived reasonability and knowledge acquisition. These findings indicate how human-robot cooperation can be improved in terms of enhancing workers’ everyday experiences with industrial robots, for example, by providing a feeling of control or emphasizing human competences.
