POSTED: 02 Sep, 2025

Integrating collaborative robots (cobots) into human workspaces demands more than just technical precision, it requires human-centered design. PhD researcher Yuan Liu, based at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), is tackling this challenge through her project Enhancing Human Decision Making in Human-Robot Collaboration: The Role of Augmented Reality, part of the Designing Socio-Technical Robotic Systems program within the Australian Cobotics Centre. 

Yuan’s research investigates the co-design and development of immersive visualisation approaches, including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), to simulate, prototype, and evaluate human-robot collaboration (HRC) within real-world manufacturing environments. Her goal is to empower workers and decision-makers to better understand how cobots affect workflows, spatial layouts, and safety, ultimately improving acceptance and performance. 

By leveraging Extended Reality (XR) technologies, Yuan is working to enhance human decision-making before, during, and after cobot integration. Her aim is to create intuitive, interactive systems that help workers anticipate robot actions and develop AR-based design frameworks that optimise collaboration and safety. 

Her project aligns closely with the program’s mission to embed holistic design as a critical factor in the seamless integration of humans and machines. The broader goal is to improve working conditions, increase production efficiency, and foster workforce acceptance of robotic technologies. Yuan’s work contributes directly to these aims by developing a Human-Centred Design Process, AR-driven frameworks and design guidelines that place human experience at the centre of robotic system development. 

A key component of Yuan’s research is her industry placement with B&R Enclosures, where she is conducting fieldwork in their gasket room. Over the course of her PhD, she will spend 12 months on placement, collecting observational data, conducting interviews, and validating her design outcomes. This engagement ensures that her findings are relevant and transferrable to industry.  

The project is structured across several phases. It began with capturing 360-degree video footage of workers performing tasks in the gasket room, followed by detailed analysis of decision-making during these interactions. Yuan then conducted interviews with employees to gather self-reported insights into their decision-making processes. These findings are informing the development of an AR-based design prototype, tailored to enhance human understanding and collaboration with robots. The final phase focuses on knowledge transfer, ensuring that outcomes are shared with industry partners and the broader research community. 

Yuan’s academic journey reflects her interdisciplinary strengths. Before joining the Australian Cobotics Centre, she earned an MSc in Interactive Media from University College Cork (Ireland) in 2022, where she gained expertise in Multimedia Technologies and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Her academic path began with a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Planning from Southwest University (China), followed by several years of professional experience in landscape architecture and urban planning. This diverse background informs her approach to research, blending design thinking with technical innovation. 

Her work is supported by a multidisciplinary supervisory team, including Professor Glenda Caldwell, Professor Markus Rittenbruch, Associate Professor Müge Fialho Leandro Alves Teixeira, Dr Alan Burden, and Dr Matthias Guertler from UTS. She also collaborates closely with staff at B&R Enclosures, including Eric Stocker and Josiah Brooks, who facilitate access to the workplace and support her data collection efforts. 

By the end of her project in November 2026, Yuan aims to deliver a framework for understanding human behaviour and decision-making in manufacturing, a human-centred AR design approach for collaborative robotics, and guidelines for designing AR interfaces that optimise human-robot interaction. 

🔗 Read more about Yuan’s project on our website: https://www.australiancobotics.org/project/project-3-3-augmented-reality-in-collaborative-robotics/