Many industrial tasks-such as sanding, installing fasteners, and wire harnessing-are difficult to automate due to task complexity and variability. We instead investigate deploying robots in an assistive role for these tasks, where the robot assumes the physical task burden and the skilled worker provides both the high-level task planning and low-level feedback necessary to effectively complete the task. In this article, we describe the development of a system for flexible human-robot teaming that combines state-of-the-art methods in end-user programming and shared autonomy and its implementation in sanding applications. We demonstrate the use of the system in two types of sanding tasks, situated in aircraft manufacturing, that highlight two potential workflows within the human-robot teaming setup. We conclude by discussing challenges and opportunities in human-robot teaming identified during the development, application, and demonstration of our system.

翻译：许多工业任务（如打磨、安装紧固件和线束装配）因任务复杂性和多变性而难以实现自动化。我们转而研究在这些任务中部署机器人作为辅助角色，由机器人承担物理任务负荷，而熟练工人则提供完成任务所需的高层任务规划与低层实时反馈。本文描述了一种结合终端用户编程与共享自主性前沿方法的人机协作灵活系统开发过程，及其在打磨应用中的实现。我们以航空制造场景下的两类打磨任务为例，展示了该系统在人机协作框架中的两种潜在工作流程。最后，基于系统开发、应用与演示过程中的经验，探讨了人机协作面临的挑战与机遇。