  Purpose - Most industrial robots are still programmed using the typical
teaching process, through the use of the robot teach pendant. This is a tedious
and time-consuming task that requires some technical expertise, and hence new
approaches to robot programming are required. The purpose of this paper is to
present a robotic system that allows users to instruct and program a robot with
a high-level of abstraction from the robot language.
  Design/methodology/approach - The paper presents in detail a robotic system
that allows users, especially non-expert programmers, to instruct and program a
robot just showing it what it should do, in an intuitive way. This is done
using the two most natural human interfaces (gestures and speech), a force
control system and several code generation techniques. Special attention will
be given to the recognition of gestures, where the data extracted from a motion
sensor (three-axis accelerometer) embedded in the Wii remote controller was
used to capture human hand behaviours. Gestures (dynamic hand positions) as
well as manual postures (static hand positions) are recognized using a
statistical approach and artificial neural networks.
  Practical implications - The key contribution of this paper is that it offers
a practical method to program robots by means of gestures and speech, improving
work efficiency and saving time.
  Originality/value - This paper presents an alternative to the typical robot
teaching process, extending the concept of human-robot interaction and
co-worker scenario. Since most companies do not have engineering resources to
make changes or add new functionalities to their robotic manufacturing systems,
this system constitutes a major advantage for small- to medium-sized
enterprises.
