Where Control Softens : Designing for Hesitation, Memory, and Embodied Interaction in Mining Automation

Sammanfattning

This project explores how automated machines can be understood not only as powerful, efficient, and autonomous systems, but also as situated and relational entities. The project began with a reflection on everyday automated machines, such as domestic robot vacuum cleaners and challenged the mainstream notion of automation as something seamless, invisible, and fully autonomous. In practice, these machines hesitate, misjudge, stop, wait, and depend on human interpretation. This tension becomes more critical in remote operation, where the operator is physically separated from the machine and many sensory cues are lost. Developed in collaboration with Epiroc, a global industrial company providing equipment, automation solutions, and services for the mining and infrastructure sectors, the project focuses on the relationship between remote operators and automated machines. The final outcome is a set of physical interface prototypes. Through resistance, vibration, haptic feedback, and temporal replay, these prototypes explore how machines might express hesitation, material conditions, recent experience, and the need for human intervention. Rather than simply presenting information, they invite the operator to perceive, interpret, and negotiate with the machine. The project proposes a different approach to automation design: one that moves beyond control and efficiency, and treats legibility, vulnerability, and felt presence as meaningful qualities in human-machine relationships.