Design and testing of (A)MICO: a multimodal feedback system to facilitate the interaction between cobot and human operator

The present work describes the design, development and testing of a multimodal feedback system, named (A)MICO, with visual and acoustic feedback designed to facilitate the interaction of workers with collaborative robots (cobots) in production lines. The feedback is designed to make the human operator more aware of the cobot’s ongoing and future activities, and therefore gain more control over the situation. The ultimate goal is to obtain a new intuitive mode for transferring information through the combination of lights and sounds, not only to facilitate the flow of communication from the cobot to the operator, but also to make the interaction more accessible to neurodivergent groups, such as people with autism spectrum disorders. The design process focused on the evaluation of the human–robot interaction to select the situations where additional information is needed, and which is the best way to transfer messages as intuitively as possible. Potential end-users were actively involved during all stages of the design and development process. Five volunteers with high functioning autism participated in a preliminary co-design to identify the issues related to the interaction with the cobot and the logic of the multimodal signals. Then, to assess the system’s adaptability to several needs and the level of usability in providing information, validation tests were carried out involving a wider group of participants with ASD. The results suggest that the adoption of a multimodal communication strategy can be useful for making the workplace accessible and improving the well-being of all workers.