Human-Robot collaboration in industrialized construction manufacturing 5.0: A bibliometric mapping of smart production research

Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) is increasingly recognized as a means of enhancing productivity, improving worker safety, and facilitating intelligent automation in the built environment. Alongside the rise of Construction Manufacturing 5.0, the industry is gradually shifting from purely on-site automation to more industrialized, repeatable, and data-driven production methods, such as prefabrication, modular fabrication, and factory-enabled assembly. Despite this progress, literature still lacks a synthesis of the knowledge structure, key research metrics, and future directions that connect HRC in Construction 5.0 to broader advancements in industrial robotics, smart production systems, and human-centered automation. To address this gap, this study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 182 peer-reviewed publications indexed from 2013 to 2024. Using advanced data visualization tools, this review highlights six emerging research trends: (1) optimization of manufacturing processes in construction through predictive models and machine learning in robots; (2) HRC secure and reliable through intuitive interfaces and virtual reality; (3) implementation and management of human-machine collaborative systems in industrial 4.0 and 5.0 environments; (4) Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) in smart production environments; (5) Autonomous and teleoperated robotics in construction; (6) development of intelligent simulated environments for human-machine collaboration. By integrating performance analysis, co-citation networks, bibliographic coupling, and term co-occurrence, this study outlines the intellectual foundation and current research areas at the intersection of Construction 5.0 and smart production. The resulting knowledge maps differentiate established theoretical foundations and emerging areas that can guide research prioritization, evaluation metrics, and technology transfer strategies for industrialized construction manufacturing and advanced collaborative robotics.