Mental Health promotion of cobot Workers in Industry 4.0

Project Information

MindBot

Grant agreement ID: 847926

DOI

10.3030/847926

Project closed

EC signature date 22 November 2019

Start date 1 January 2020

End date 30 September 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being

Total cost

€ 3 919 863,75

EU contribution

€ 3 908 863,75

Coordinated by

IRCCS - ASSOCIAZIONE LA NOSTRA FAMIGLIA 'ISTITUTO SCIENTIFICO EUGENIO MEDEA'
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MindBot (Mental Health promotion of cobot Workers in Industry 4.0)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In accordance with data of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, psychosocial risks and work-related stress are among the most challenging issues in occupational safety and health. They impact significantly on the health of individuals, organisations and national economies.
In the context of automated work, the risk of perceiving low challenges is extremely high for repetitive tasks; to the contrary, experiences of inadequacy may arise in workers exposed to tasks requiring unusually intense or sustained focus of attention and manual precision. This risk is strong in manufacturing industries where robots are increasingly being introduced, as they are supposed to be efficient, flexible, precise, safe, and able to unload workers from more strenuous works.
Manufacturing industry can thus be considered an ideal context for developing and implementing preventive and protective approaches aimed at promoting well-being through the support of optimal experiences and work engagement at both the individual and collective levels.
MindBot aimed at identifying methods and implementing solutions for promoting good mental health in the emerging industries 4.0 and 5.0 within the specific context of manufacturing enterprises that adopt collaborative robots (cobots) in their production lines.
Specific objectives that were achieved at the conclusion of the action were:
1) Identifying protective factors and work-related stress risk factors in workplaces adopting state of the art cobots.
2) Redesigning both the human-machine interface and the cobot technology in order to make them “mental health friendly”.
3) Evaluating experience and behaviour of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder during tasks involving mental health friendly cobots.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The MindBot project envisaged 3 phases:
Phase 1 - A comprehensive baseline assessment of the work experience was performed in manufacturing industries, taking into account the multiple facets of mental health, including psychological, psychosocial, physiological, environmental and organisational factors (WP2, WP3 and WP4).
Phase 2 – Development, testing and refinement of the innovative MindBot cobot platform (WP5 and WP6). The technologies for the final MindBot platform were developed, integrated and tested, before being delivered for their final assessment in a controlled laboratory environment.
Phase 3 – The MindBot prototype platform was tested in a controlled laboratory environment on neurotypical and autistic volunteers, in order to test and validate the system as regards workers’ mental health impact (WP7 and WP8).
Results of the project were the definition of an employment model for persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) working in manufacturing companies adopting collaborative robots (Deliverable D7.2) and a description of all technical aspects and functional characteristics that should be taken into account for the realization of robotic cells that can promote operator well-being, in line with the concept of Industry 5.0 (Deliverable D7.3). The project also set organizational guidelines for the design of mental health friendly cobot workplaces. The guidelines will foster the need to promote worker’s mental well-being, which contribute to better company performance, and will pave the way toward new standards in designing that adopt collaborative robots in their production lines (Deliverable D8.2).
The MindBot project is included in the new Healthy Workplaces Campaign 2023-2025 “Safe and healthy work in the digital age” of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA).
AMICO, a Multimodal device to improve inclusive Interaction between cobot and operator, developed within the MindBot project, recently won the first edition of the Life Science TTO Network Contest at the conference 'Future Trends in Translational Medicine' organised by the Human Technopole Foundation and Nature Italy.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The results of the project will have many substantial impacts, as described below:
Improved mental health and reduced sickness absence in the EU working population.
Results reported in WP2, WP3 and WP4 deliverables provided a baseline for MindBot platform technical development together with novel findings on how workers’ individual skills and abilities are prominently matched in workplaces using cobots for production line activities. Grounding on these results, the technologies developed and implemented in WP5 and WP6 were aimed at designing and engineering a cobot (MindBot) capable of adjusting human-robot interaction based on the worker’s psychological and physiological states. Such a tailored device may have a substantial impact on the mental health of employers potentially exposed to monotonous, alienating, or difficult tasks.
Positive impact on productivity and economic results of workplaces by improved policies and action to promote mental health.
Several technologies developed within the MindBot project were specifically aimed at improving productivity by promoting workers’ mental health. These implementations included: Improved communication between worker and cobot regarding a more intuitive experience through LED signals and optical sensing devices, improved cobot-communication of failures to address the main stress factor of the field research, leading to smoother collaboration and hence higher productivity rates; development of an affective controller adapting human-cobot interaction to worker’s affective and attention cues; a social virtual agent acting as avatar of the cobot, to increase the empathetic bond between the cobot and the human worker.
Impact on people diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
A key expected result of the project is to define an employment model for persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The MindBot project contributed towards this goal by: a) Designing a process for the introduction of people with ASD to a collaborative task in a laboratory environment; b) studying their quality of experience and mental energy use during a week of experimental activity; c) designing a multimodal device to improve inclusive interaction between cobot and ASD operator using a participatory design approach.
Improved policies and guidelines to enhance mental health in the workplace based on the broader evidence base of effective interventions.
The project produced guidelines for the technical aspects and functional characteristics that should be taken into account for the realization of robotic cells that can promote operator well-being, for a comprehensive understanding and improvement of the well-being of workers interacting with cobots (Deliverable D7.3) and organizational guidelines for the design of mental health friendly cobot workplaces. (Deliverable D8.2).

MindBot Consortium - Final Conference