In human-robot collaborative assembly, robots are often required to assist human operators to execute the assembly of complex tasks. However, the robots cannot be intuitively controlled to execute accurate task assembly and motion control in close proximity. In response to this need, a novel approach using multimodal data is developed for human-centred robot control in human-robot collaborative assembly. An interface design is developed to fuse multimodal communication channels for robust and adaptive robot control, and then multimodal data are defined as control input for assembly task execution. This control scheme offers human operators symbiotic multimodal tools for proactive HRC with enhanced flexibility and adaptability.