Audio-visual AR to Improve Awareness of Hazard Zones Around Robots

Navigating a space populated by fenceless industrial robots while carrying out other tasks can be stressful, as the worker is unsure about when she is invading the area of influence of a robot, which is a hazard zone. Such areas are difficult to estimate and standing in one may have consequences for worker safety and for the productivity of the robot. We investigate the use of multimodal (auditory and/or visual) head-mounted AR displays to warn about entering hazard zones while performing an independent navigation task. As a first step in this research, we report a design-research study (including a user study), conducted to obtain a visual and an auditory AR display subjectively judged to approach equivalence. The goal is that these designs can serve as the basis for a future modality comparison study.