A study of cooperation between humans and robots in warehouse intersections

Abstract: In the modern world, many warehouses use robots to collect different orders and to keep humans safe the robots work in restricted areas. This practice could be seen as a waste of space and resources. Therefore, this paper sets out to investigate whether it is time efficient or not. The study clocked 27 test subjects completing a simple task in a simulated environment alongside a robot, and compared the time against two robots completing the same tasks. The timer stopped when both parties had completed their task. The simulated environment consisted of an intersection and a script making the robot give way to the human-navigated robot. In the control environment with the two robots, hierarchical protocols were used, making the robot with less work left to give way to the other. The results of the study showed that it is more time efficient with only robots working in this simulated environment, compared to having both a human and a robot sharing work area. However, the results also showed that the human approach towards the robot affected the result. A test subject with a positive view on cooperating with the robot resulted in a shorter time spent on completing the task than test subjects not taking the robot into account. This could imply that it is possible to make the human-robot interaction more efficient by altering the human approach towards the robot.