Abstract
Nowadays, a collaborative robot, known as a cobot, is a robot that can learn multiple tasks and assist alongside human workers. Thus, it plays a key role in the usage of a teaching pendant controlling the collaborative robot. However, it is gap to control a cobot and a teaching pendant proficiently between beginners and skilled engineer. Programming for teaching requires coding knowledge by line and it takes time to understand the instruction of existing teaching pendants.
The teaching pendant controlling a cobot requires intuitive interfaces, not only for ease of use, but also for modifying existing execution programs. However, there is no standard or guideline for an intuitive teaching pendant controlling cobot, and it can be noticed that the usability of the teaching pendant’s interface is rather poor.
This paper shows the result of usability evaluation concerning evaluation items of usability and measurement indications. We conducted a study based on performing several steps of teaching tasks.
We recruited 30 participants consisting of beginners, intermediates, and advanced participants (F = 10, M = 20, 34.75 ± 2.50 years). Half of beginners are engineering majors and the rest are non-engineering majors. In this experiment, Indy 7 (Neuromeka) and Conty, or a teaching pendant, were used, and each participant conducted the experiment for 30 min, consisting of basic tasks and advanced tasks. Before the experiment, the coordinator explained the experimental method to the participants, After the experiment was over, after 10 min break, the interview, questionnaire and SUS about the experiment was performed.
In the result, the average of SUS is 57.86 that means the teaching pendant is not easy to use and complicate. After analysis of the result, we found that the function of the teaching pendant was so complex and the participants needed help. In the future work, we plan to propose an improved teaching pendant reflecting the usability result.
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References
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https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/system-usability-scale.html
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) grant funded by the Korean government. [21ZD1130, Development of smart machine and robot technology based on intelligent control].
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Dong, J., Kwon, W., Kang, D., Nam, S.W. (2021). A Study on the Usability Evaluation of Teaching Pendant for Manipulator of Collaborative Robot. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S. (eds) HCI International 2021 - Late Breaking Posters. HCII 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1498. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90176-9_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90176-9_31
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