Extended reality: Enhancing human-centered capabilities for human-cyber-physical systems (HCPS)

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Manufacturing in Industry 5.0 emphasizes the central role of humans and represents a high level of personalization to meet complex and individualized customer requirements. Therefore, there is a growing need for a more customized and efficient human-centered human-cyber-physical system (HCPS), which composes human-robot collaboration, flexible manufacturing, and adaptive decision-making. In this research context, Extended Reality (XR), which composes both virtual reality and augmented reality, has emerged as a critical component for enhancing human-centered HCPS. By seamlessly integrating reality with virtuality, XR provides an immersive and direct interaction method for human operators, thereby improving the effectiveness and efficiency of manufacturing processes. However, a systematical analysis of XR and its development perspectives is needed. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive state-of-art review of XR-based approaches for human-centered HCPS. First, three primary elements of XR technologies are explained in detail, including (i) environmental perception, (ii) recognition of human control signals, and (iii) system decision-making and task execution. Second, with a specific focus on the diverse XR applications across various domains, we analyze several cutting-edge XR application approaches in manufacturing. Finally, we propose three criteria, i.e., artificial intelligence, human involvement, and human-robot collaboration, to evaluate the potential of different XR technologies in realizing human-centered HCPS. We conclude by highlighting the limitations and future perspectives based on the proposed criteria.