In order to increase productivity and reduce labor costs, most manufacturing companies have adopted automated systems (for instance, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and robots) for performing material handling and transportation tasks in the production process. Two experiments were conducted to test the effect of varying the parameters of dynamic virtual and real objects on perception of hazard and risk. Experiment 1 investigates the effect of environmental factors such as speed of the dynamic virtual object, angle of approach, and distance between the subject and the virtual dynamic object under specific light intensity on perception of hazard in the workplace. A series of experiments considering a psychophysical approach and Stevens' Law were conducted. Experiment 2 studies and exam...[ Read more ]

In order to increase productivity and reduce labor costs, most manufacturing companies have adopted automated systems (for instance, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), and robots) for performing material handling and transportation tasks in the production process. Two experiments were conducted to test the effect of varying the parameters of dynamic virtual and real objects on perception of hazard and risk. Experiment 1 investigates the effect of environmental factors such as speed of the dynamic virtual object, angle of approach, and distance between the subject and the virtual dynamic object under specific light intensity on perception of hazard in the workplace. A series of experiments considering a psychophysical approach and Stevens' Law were conducted. Experiment 2 studies and examines the impact of size, speed and types of robots, angle of approach, lighting condition and virtual accident exposure on human perception of hazard and risk of robot motion, perceived safe waiting time of robots during system halts and improper pauses of robot operations, and perceived maximum reach of robot arms in virtual and real workplaces. By applying virtual reality technology, the real workplace can be simulated in the virtual world for improvement of facility design. Analysis includes techniques such as sequential experiments to compare results in virtual and real environments. The comparison of the analyzed data in virtual and real environments helps to further determine the transferability of performance and perception from virtual reality to reality. Using the preliminary results from the integrated data in the sequential experiments, potential guidelines for using virtual facility layout in industry are discussed.