Human-Robot collaboration in industrialized construction manufacturing 5.0: A bibliometric mapping of smart production research - The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

Executive Summary

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.