The Renaissance of Human-Robot Coalescence in Industry 5.0: Technological Convergence Paradigm

Introduction

Humanity first heard of robots a century ago, although not as we know them today, but as fictitious androids in a play. Josef apek, the brother of Czech writer Karel apek, created the word “robot.” It was derived from the Czech term 'robota,' which denoted compelled labor. RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots), Karel's play, featured the first imaginary humanoid. While his portrayal of robots differed slightly from today's robots, it established the groundwork for the concept of employing artificial materials to emulate human activities George Devol created and patented the first industrial robot, Unimate, thirty years later in 1950. Devol founded the world's first robot manufacturing company, Unimation, with his business friend Joseph Engelberger, popularly regarded as the “Father of Robotics.” In 1961, Unimate was utilized on the General Motors production line. Its major function was protecting human workers from poisonous chemicals and limb loss by moving die castings from a manufacturing facility and welding them onto automobile bodywork. Victor Scheinman, who designed the 'Stanford arm' at Stanford University in 1969, was the next significant development in the arena. Animation purchased the Stanford arm, an all-electric 6-axis articulated robot. The world's first economically manufactured, electrically propelled robot was created in 1975. Intel's first chipset microprocessor ran it (Ajoudani et al.,2018). From 1960 to 2000, industrial robots gained traction and were implemented, particularly in the automobile and other production industries. According to projections made by the International Robotics Federation (IRF), there were 7,42,500 industrial robots in operation in 2000. While these industrial robots made sense for larger organizations, SMEs without floor space for safety fencing, the capacity to make a large financial investment, or the programming competence to install robots were simply excluded. They were hampered by a lack of an automated solution that would allow them to maximize their assets. Workers, on the other hand, were concerned that robots might take their employment. Due to safety concerns, working beside a robot seemed unthinkable. This sparked the birth of a new branch of robotics known as Human-Robot Collaboration, which began researching the methods by which humans and robots may collaborate to achieve common goals. Working iterations of the first cobot may be ascribed to three members of the University of Southern Denmark research team: Esben Stergaard, Kristian Kassow, and Kasper Sty. They aimed to create a low-cost, lightweight, and adaptable collaborative robot that could provide a quick return on investment for the industrial industry. This breakthrough concept resulted in the establishment of Universal Robots A/S in the year 2005. The launch of Industry 4.0 in 2011 accelerated the computerization of the industry. They advocated for a transition to ' smart factories,' which would use equipment with sensors, connection, and the capacity to do tasks with minimum human interaction. As a result, the industrial industry experienced a paradigm change from expensive, large-sized, and inflexible robots to lightweight, networked, small, and simple-to-use robots, giving birth to the cobot! (Villani et al.,2018). A collaborative robot, sometimes known as a cobot, is a robot made specifically to engage or communicate with people in a shared workspace. Industrial robots are designed to take the place of people, whereas cobots are designed to work alongside them. Improvements in vision technology, sensors, AI programming, and decreased space needs make the cohabitation of humans and cobots simple and safe. Since the development of the assembly line, no other automation technique has had a bigger influence on production. The main objective of industrial revolutions is to divide labour between humans and machines. Whether we refer to them as “machines” or “robots,” most occupations that are challenging, repetitive, or dangerous for people will eventually be replaced by these machines. Cleaning robots, for example, are capable of vacuuming a room or an office. It is just a matter of time until robots take over all cleaning duties in the future. Even while humans and robots may already do cleaning tasks together, past experience with the rate of automation suggests that in the future, people will perform less cleaning than robots. Technological innovation and human acceptance of robots are the main factors influencing how quickly automation becomes ingrained in our lives. It is crucial to study human-robot interactions and their effects on society as a whole since robots might have a significant impact on civilization (Demir,2019). Table 1 shows the basic difference between Industry 4.0 and 5.0 for vivid understanding.