13 accepted papers
An important component for the effective collaboration of humans with robots is the compatibility of their movements, especially when humans physically collaborate with a robot partner. Following previous findings that humans interact more seamlessly with a robot that moves with human-like or biolog…
Tactile sensing has been increasingly utilized in robot control of unknown objects to infer physical properties and optimize manipulation. However, there is limited understanding about the contribution of different sensory modalities during interactive perception in complex interaction both in robot…
Humans excel at physical interaction despite long feedback delays and low-bandwidth actuators. Yet little is known about how humans manage physical interaction. A quantitative understanding of how they do is critical for designing machines that can safely and effectively interact with humans, e.g. a
Modern computer algorithms easily beat world champions in chess or Go, but state-of-the-art robots are still outperformed by two-year-old’s in manipulating the pieces, let alone interacting with more complex objects. This work studied human behavior when moving an underactuated object, a cup with a…
A prominent challenge in the field of robotics is manipulation of flexible objects. One major factor that makes this task difficult is the complex dynamics emerging from its high-dimensional structure. This argues against the use of popular optimization-based approaches, which scale poorly with syst…
Manipulation of flexible objects is one of the major challenges in robotics as the nonlinear dynamics of the high-dimensional object structure makes it difficult to apply current control methods. A previous simulation study showed that control with few pre-structured joint trajectories coupled with…
Control and manipulation of objects with underactuated dynamics remains a challenge for robots. Due to their typically nonlinear dynamics, it is computationally taxing to implement model-based planning and control techniques. Yet humans can skillfully manipulate such objects, seemingly with ease. Mo
Relatively little work in human and robot control has examined the control of underactuated objects with internal dynamics, such as transporting a cup of coffee, a task that presents little problems for humans. This study examined how humans move a `cup of coffee' with a view to identify principles…
This study examined strategies humans chose to manipulate an object with complex (nonlinear, underactuated) dynamics, such as liquid sloshing in a cup of coffee. The problem was simplified to the well-known cart-and-pendulum system moving on a horizontal line. This model was implemented in a virtual…
The locomotion and balance capabilities of bipedal robots have greatly improved in recent years. However, maintaining balance on difficult terrain still poses a significant challenge. In this paper, we examined how humans maintain mediolateral balance when standing on a narrow beam with bare feet an…
Standing on a beam is a challenging motor skill that requires the regulation of upright balance and stability. In this paper, we analyzed the behavior of humans balancing on a narrow beam without footwear. The results revealed high anti-correlation between lumped upper- and lower-body angular moment…
This study examines human control of physical interaction with objects that exhibit complex (nonlinear, chaotic, underactuated) dynamics. We hypothesized that humans exploited stability properties of the human-object interaction. Using a simplified 2D model for carrying a “cup of coffee”, we develop…
Physical human-robot collaboration is becoming more common, both in industrial and service robotics. Cooperative execution of a task requires intuitive and efficient interaction between both actors. For humans, this means being able to predict and adapt to robot movements. Given that natural human m