IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019 - 106

YOUNG PROFESSIONALS

How Can Assistive Robotics
Improve Personal and Work Life?
A Million Dollar Question!
By Sascha Wischniewski and Arash Ajoudani

M

any innovations and major
technological improve-
ments in the field of robot-
ics enable new forms of
assistance in personal and professional
environments, for example, hand -
ling heavy loads,
taking over re-
petitive and/or
Young professionals,
effort-requiring
tasks, and pro-
in particular, should
viding social
fully understand
support for the
elderly and im-
the need for an
paired. To some
interdisciplinary
extent, these in-
point of view to meet novations lead
to new ques-
these challenges.
tions about ro-
botic interaction
with and impact
on peoples' personal and professional
lives, more generally. These work-life
issues can be tackled only from an
interdisciplinary point of view. Engi-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MRA.2019.2910421
Date of publication: 12 June 2019

106

*

IEEE ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION MAGAZINE

*

JUNE 2019

neering, psychology, and computer
science are relevant disciplines that
are now combining knowledge and
joining forces to tackle these com-
plex challenges.
One research area that needs atten-
tion from human-factors engineering is
interaction design and, particularly,
determining how to properly transfer
interaction-design principles from soft-
ware programming and human-human
interaction to robotics. Analysis of how
different target groups (end users as well
as workers) potentially impact these
design rules is necessary. Other areas of
research include, for example, ethical
concerns related to support tasks (such
as when taking care of the elderly) and
evaluating the economics and ergonom-
ics of hybrid work systems involving
humans and robots (for instance, regard-
ing physical and mental workloads).
Young professionals, in particular,
should fully understand the need for an
interdisciplinary point of view to meet
these challenges, and they should build
and increase their interdisciplinary net-
works to pursue such research ques-

tions. A good opportunity to do so,
among several relevant IEEE events, is
the 15th IEEE Conference on Advanced
Robotics and Its Social Impacts (ARSO),
which will be held in Beijing, China, 31
October-2 November 2019. The con-
ference is supported by the Technical
Committee (TC) on Human Factors in
Robotics (HFiR) of the International
Ergonomics Association (IEA).
The IEA TC provides a forum to
share and discuss the latest develop-
ments and up-to-date information on
HFiR in science and practice. It aims to
link the activities of the IEA's federated
national societies as well as to foster
the exchange of information with insti-
tutions including the IEEE, the Human
Factors and Ergonomics Society, and
the International Organization for
Standardization. The next TC meeting
will take place at ARSO 2019. Scien-
tists engaged in HFiR from all disci-
plines and interested joining the TC
are invited to send an email to wis-
chniewski.sascha@baua.bund.de.
IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine - June 2019
