Measuring Cognitive Load and Stress in Collaborative Robotics

Recent advances in robotic technologies boosted the collaboration between humans and robots to unimaginable levels a few years ago. Humans and robots share the same workspace, thus collaborating to tackle very different tasks. Robotic support can relieve humans from accomplishing tiring and dangerous activities, and productivity can be improved. On the other hand, sharing the workspace might cause anxiety in humans: collaborating with a robot can increase the level of stress and cognitive load, as the robot’s intention may not be understood. This paper measures attention, cognitive load, and stress levels when a collaborative robotic arm is used to support humans in an assembly task. Moreover, the impact of sound alerts to manifest the robot’s intentions is evaluated by user tests.