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Activity recognition is a crucial aspect in smart manufacturing and human-robot collaboration, as robots play a vital role in improving efficiency and safety by accurately recognizing human intentions and proactively assisting with tasks. Current human intention recognition applications only consider the accuracy of recognition but ignore the importance of predicting it in advance. Given human reaching movements, we want to equip the robot with the ability to predict human intent not only with precise recognition but also at an early stage. In this paper, we propose a framework to apply Transformer-based and LSTM-based models to learn motion intentions. Second, based on the observation of distances of human joints along the motion trajectory, we explore how we can use the hidden Markov model to find intent state transitions, i.e., intent uncertainty and intent certainty. Finally, two data types are generated, one for the full data and the other for the length of data before state transitions; both data are evaluated on models to assess the robustness of intention prediction. We conducted experiments in a manufacturing workspace where the experimenter reaches multiple scattered targets and further this experimental scenario was designed to examine how intents differ, but motions are only slightly different. The proposed models were then evaluated with experimental data, and further performance comparisons were made between models and between different intents. Finally, early predictions were validated to be better than using full-length data. 

Abstract Road profile information can be utilized to enhance vehicle control performance, passenger ride comfort, and route planning and optimization. Existing road-profile estimation algorithms are mainly based on one single vehicle, which are usually susceptible to modeling uncertainties and measurement noises. This technical brief proposes a new cascaded learning framework that utilizes multiple heterogeneous vehicles to achieve enhanced estimation. In this framework, each individual vehicle first performs a local estimation via a standard disturbance observer (DOB) while traversing a considered road segment. Then learning filters are designed to dynamically connect the vehicles, and the preliminary estimates from one vehicle are utilized to generate the learning signal for another. For each vehicle, a heterogeneous learning signal is produced and added to its estimation loop for estimating enhancement, through which the estimations are improved over multiple iterations. Extensive numerical studies are carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method with promising results demonstrated. 

This paper presents a comprehensive disassembly sequence planning (DSP) algorithm in the human–robot collaboration (HRC) setting with consideration of several important factors including limited resources and human workers’ safety. The proposed DSP algorithm is capable of planning and distributing disassembly tasks among the human operator, the robot, and HRC, aiming to minimize the total disassembly time without violating resources and safety constraints. Regarding the resource constraints, we consider one human operator and one robot, and a limited quantity of disassembly tools. Regarding the safety constraints, we consider avoiding potential human injuries from to-be-disassembled components and possible collisions between the human operator and the robot due to the short distance between disassembly tasks. In addition, the transitions for tool changing, the moving between disassembly modules, and the precedence constraint of components to be disassembled are also considered and formulated as constraints in the problem formulation. Both numerical and experimental studies on the disassembly of a used hard disk drive (HDD) have been conducted to validate the proposed algorithm.