Human-Robot Collaboration in the Industry 5.0 Era: The Aerospace Perspective

Industry 5.0 is meant to achieve a new level in terms of innovation and productivity. To do so, Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is going to play a crucial role: the combination of human’s flexibility, with the repeatability and tirelessness of robots offers numerous opportunities for improvement in this new era. This paper explores HRC from the human perspective, showing a suite of the innovative technologies that, driven by AI and DL, and supported by robots, will raise the next level of industrial efficiency. Voice Assistance systems, Computer Vision powered benches, smart workstations or Extended Reality (XR) are meant to empower individuals on the manufacturing front. The paper also presents several solutions that have been implemented in a pilot aerospace factory to empower futuristic industrial operators, and how those solutions should be combined with cognitive robots to shape the roadmap and future of aerospace with precision, efficiency, and a touch of humanity.