Coordination of European Research on Industrial Safety towards Smart and Sustainable Growth
AIPER
AI-PowERed human-robot work environments for safe, healthy, and trustworthy collaboration
The increasing deployment of collaborative robots in industrial environments offers significant opportunities to improve productivity, flexibility and ergonomics, but also introduces new occupational safety challenges. Human–robot interaction can expose workers to physical, cognitive and psychosocial risks if not adequately designed and managed. There is a growing need for intelligent systems capable of improving worker safety, risk assessment, and overall well-being while maintaining or increasing productivity. AIPER addresses this need by leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance safety, situational awareness and decision-making in human-robot work environments and to provide actionable guidance to stakeholders & policymakers, industry leaders, and tech providers, for designing these environments that foster safety, well-being, and trust in long-term collaboration.
The project investigates how AI-based methods can be used to assess and manage worker safety, risk assessment, and overall well-being while maintaining or increasing productivity in human–robot work environments. It explores how human behaviour, robot dynamics and environmental conditions can be monitored and integrated into adaptive safety systems. The project examines the role of AI in supporting operator awareness, decision-making and trust, as well as its impact on worker acceptance.
AIPER will generate evidence-based knowledge on how AI-powered decision support tools influence workers’ cognitive and physiological responses, health, and trust in human–robot collaboration, providing a solid foundation for occupational safety and health–oriented workplace design. It will deliver and validate a human-centric AI decision support tool integrated into realistic AR/VR industrial scenarios, together with usability evaluation and a structured risk analysis addressing AI-specific hazards such as sensor failures, lack of transparency, and misinterpretation of human input. Building on these results, AIPER will produce a solid basis for practice-oriented, safety-by-design guidelines and methods to support the design, deployment, training, and continuous risk assessment of AI-powered human-robot collaboration systems, enabling policymakers, industry, and technology providers to foster safe, inclusive, and trustworthy industrial environments.
The project is structured into four interconnected Work Packages (WPs), each addressing a critical aspect of safe and human-centric human–robot collaboration. WP1 will focus on health through experimental studies and focus groups, investigating cognitive and physiological impacts of AI-powered decision support tools across contexts such as assembly, order picking, and quality control. WP2 will focus on safety through real industrial cases and virtual simulations, targeting activities with higher injury exposure, such as maintenance tasks. The findings from WP1 and WP2 will feed into WP3, which will produce final guidelines and practical tools to promote a human-centric approach in human-robot collaboration environments with AI integration. WP4 will provide overarching support by coordinating project management, communication, and dissemination activities to ensure the effective sharing and implementation of results.
Alessandra Neri
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Gaia Vitrano
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Antonino La Monica
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Antonio Calabrese
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Javier Larrañeta
PESI
Spain
François Massé
INERIS
France
Albin Tarrisse
INERIS
France
Guido Jacopo Luca Micheli
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Fabiana Tornese
University of Salento
Italy
Valerio Elia
University of Salento
Italy
Serena Andriulo
University of Salento
Italy
Rafael Ispizua Anduiza
IPARTIC Consulting
Spain
INERIS
France
OSALAN
Spain