@article{sanders_sener_chen_2024, title={Robot-related injuries in the workplace: An analysis of OSHA Severe Injury Reports}, volume={121}, ISSN={["1872-9126"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104324}, DOI={10.1016/j.apergo.2024.104324}, abstractNote={Industrial robots are increasingly commonplace, but research on prototypical accidents and injuries has been sparse, hindering evidence-based safety strategies. Using Severe Injury Reports (SIRs) from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), we identified 77 robot-related accidents from 2015-2022. Of these, 54 involved stationary robots, resulting in 66 injuries, mainly finger amputations and fractures to the head and torso. Mobile robots caused 23 accidents, leading to 27 injuries, mainly fractures to the legs and feet. A two-stage deductive-inductive thematic analysis was performed using text data from the final narratives in the reports to discover patterns in tasks, precipitating mechanisms, and contributing factors. Findings highlight the need for guards and collision avoidance systems that detect individual extremities. Post-contact strategies should focus on mitigating finger amputations. More structured and detailed narratives in the SIRs are needed.}, journal={APPLIED ERGONOMICS}, author={Sanders, Nathan E. and Sener, Elif and Chen, Karen B.}, year={2024}, month={Nov} } @article{sanders_xie_chen_2023, title={A comparison of the psychological effects of robot motion in physical and virtual environments}, volume={112}, ISSN={["1872-9126"]}, url={https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104039}, DOI={10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104039}, abstractNote={A mixed-methods approach was used to assess the fidelity of virtual environments as ergonomic assessment tools for human-robot interaction. Participants performed a visual search task in the physical environment while a nearby collaborative robot repeatedly extended its arm toward them. This scenario was reconstructed in two virtual environments with different levels of graphical detail. Measures of presence, task performance, workload, and anxiety were taken to determine the effect of robot motion in all three environments. Task performance decreased in response to robot motion in the physical environment, while workload and anxiety increased. This simple effect of motion was consistent across environments for measures of task performance and anxiety. However, people performed faster overall in virtual reality, and the effect of motion on workload was greatly reduced in virtual reality. Results in the virtual environments suggest that people were distracted by the sound of the robot, and that presence was affected by manipulations of immersion and coherence.}, journal={APPLIED ERGONOMICS}, author={Sanders, Nathan Edward and Xie, Ziyang and Chen, Karen B.}, year={2023}, month={Oct} }