Determining Robotic Assistance for Inclusive Workplaces for People with Disabilities

Human–robot collaboration (HRC) provides the opportunity to enhance the physical abilities of severely and multiply disabled people thus allowing them to work in industrial workplaces on the primary labour market. In order to assist this target group optimally, the collaborative robot has to support them based on their individual capabilities. Therefore, the knowledge about the amount of required assistance is a central aspect for the design and programming of HRC workplaces. The paper introduces a new method that bases the task allocation on the individual capabilities of a person. The method obtains human capabilities on the one hand and the process requirements on the other. In the following step, these two profiles are compared and the workload of the human is acquired. This determines the amount of support or assistance, which should be provided by a robot capable of HRC. In the end, the profile comparison of an anonymized participant and the concept of the human–robot workplace is presented.