A Human–Robot collaborative framework for draping of advanced composite materials

Manual draping carbon fibre and fibreglass plies is a critical yet labour-intensive step in composite manufacturing, where production efficiency and part quality strongly depend on operator skill and repeatability. This paper addresses the challenges of introducing Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) to support draping operations while maintaining flexibility, safety, and industrial feasibility. The system featured intuitive human-robot interaction through a human action recognition system, a context reasoner, and a human-robot collaborative transport module designed for manipulating planar deformable objects. The framework was validated on two robotic workcells addressing three industrial use cases from the aerospace, automotive and maritime sectors. An extensive experimental campaign, culminating in the production of multi-layer components, demonstrated substantial gains in efficiency and operator support: process time for large components was reduced by 50%, while operator workload decreased by 40%. The robot's precision in material placement also cut ply draping time per layer from 12% in manual operations to 6%, contributing to lower physical and cognitive demands on operators (workload scores averaging below 30%). The study shows that the benefits of HRC in draping operations are highly context-dependent: partial automation yields limited gains for small/medium components, whereas for large components it significantly improves performance by reducing cycle time, enhancing product quality, and minimising ergonomic strain on operators. Finally, the paper presents a critical analysis of the proposed solution, highlighting its drawbacks and suggesting improvements.