  Objective: The status of human-robot collaboration for assembly applications
is reviewed and key current challenges for the research community and
practitioners are presented. Background: As the pandemic of COVID-19 started to
surface the manufacturers went under pressure to address demand challenges.
Social distancing measures made fewer people available to work. In such
situations, robots were pointed at to support humans to address a shortage in
supply. An important activity where humans are needed in a manufacturing value
chain is assembly. HRC assembly systems are supposed to safeguard coexisting
humans, perform a range of actions, and often need to be reconfigured to handle
product variety. This requires them to be resilient and adaptable to various
configurations during their operational life. Besides the potential advantages
of using robots the challenges of using them in an industrial assembly are
enormous. Methods: This mini-review summarizes the challenges of industrial
deployment of collaborative robots for assembly applications. Applications: The
documented challenges highlight the future research directions in human-robot
interaction for industrial applications.
