An Augmented Interface to Display Industrial Robot Faults

Technology advancement is changing the way industrial factories have to face an increasingly complex and competitive market. The fourth industrial revolution (known as industry 4.0) is also changing how human workers have to carry out tasks and actions. In fact, it is no longer impossible to think of a scenario in which human operators and industrial robots work side-by-side, sharing the same environment and tools. To realize a safe work environment, workers should trust robots as well as they trust human operators. Such goal is indeed complex to achieve, especially when workers are under stress conditions, such as when a fault occurs and the human operators are no longer able to understand what is happening in the industrial manipulator. Indeed, Augmented Reality (AR) can help workers to visualize in real-time robots’ faults. This paper proposes an augmented system that assists human workers to recognize and visualize errors, improving their awareness of the system. The system has been tested using both an AR see-through device and a smartphone.