Visit to Konecranes in Hyvinkää: Reflections from the Zero4 Symposium
- Veronika Žigraiová
- Oct 31
- 2 min read
Our Mixed Fleet project team headed to Hyvinkää to take part in the Zero4 Symposium hosted by Konecranes. The event brought together researchers, engineers, and industry professionals to discuss what’s happening at the intersection of automation, sustainability, and digital transformation. It had a nice balance between presentations, practical demos, and open discussions.
The day started with the main program, featuring talks from Konecranes experts and partner organizations. The focus was on how digital ecosystems, AI, and data-driven maintenance are reshaping heavy industry. What stood out was the practical approach, it wasn’t about distant “Industry 5.0” visions but about what’s already being done today.
After the talks, we joined a guided demo tour around the Konecranes facilities. The demos were impressive, from remote crane operations and AI-assisted maintenance tools to digital twin visualizations showing live data from industrial equipment. There was also a demonstration of autonomous AGVs moving materials in coordination with human operators, showing how mixed fleet environments can work in real life. It was fascinating to see how these systems communicate through light cues and motion, subtle, but effective.
In the afternoon, we had the chance to present our own papers (see references below) to a broad audience of specialists from both academia and industry. The presentations sparked thoughtful discussions about trust in automation, especially between humans and AGVs. People were curious about our findings on how different generations and levels of work experience shape attitudes toward automated systems.
Another topic that drew a lot of attention was non-anthropomorphic robot communication, basically, how robots that don’t look or act human can still communicate clearly with people. According to our study, light signals were rated as the most effective method for AGVs to express intent or status in warehouse settings. Several attendees shared their own experiences, noting how important such subtle communication becomes in busy industrial environments.
Overall, the visit was a great mix of learning and exchange. The atmosphere at Konecranes was open and collaborative, everyone seemed genuinely interested in closing the gap between theory and practice. For us, it was valuable to see how our research on trust and human-robot collaboration connects to real industrial challenges.
And as always, it’s different when you step out of the office and see the technology in real life, big cranes, AGVs, and humans figuring out how to work alongside them. It’s a good reminder that automation isn’t replacing people; it’s reshaping teamwork.
Written by Veronika
(Published also on the Tampere University Computing Sciences blog series.)
References for the work that was presented:
Chowdhury, A., Carrasco, A., Müller, F., Ahtinen, A., Väänänen, K., Schmidt, A., Leusmann, J. (Accepted and in publication). Context is Cue-cial: Assessing the Interpretation of Social Signals from Non-Anthropomorphic Robots in Different Contexts. In 2025 International Conference on Social Robotics + AI (ICSR) (pp. TBA). SpringerNature.
Žigraiová, V., Chowdhury, A., Ahtinen, A., & Väänänen, K. (2025). Trust in warehouse automation: A generational study of workers and automated guided vehicles. In Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications: Vol. 408. HHAI 2025(pp. 108–121). IOS. Press. https://doi.org/10.3233/FAIA250630
