16 accepted papers
As robots and humans increasingly share the same workspace, the development of safe motion plans becomes paramount. For real-world applications, nonetheless, it is critical that safety solutions are achieved without compromising performance. The computation of safe, time-efficient trajectories, howe…
In robotics, many control and planning schemes have been developed to ensure human physical safety in human-robot interaction. The human psychological state and the expectation towards the robot, however, are typically neglected. Even if the robot behaviour is regarded as biomechanically safe, human
Kinesthetic teaching of collaborative robots is applied for intuitive and flexible robot programming by demonstration. This enables non-experts to program such robots on the task-level. Multiple strategies exist to teach velocity- or torque-controlled robots and, thus, the maneuverability among comm…
In physical human-robot interaction (pHRI), safety is a key requirement. As collisions between humans and robots can generally not be avoided, it must be ensured that the human is not harmed. The robot reflected mass, the contact geometry, and the relative velocity between human and robot are the pa…
Knowledge of the robot's load inertial parameters is indispensable for accurate and safe operation, especially in collaborative robotics. However, an intuitive method for online inertial payload identification, usable while the robot is executing another online generated task, is still lacking. In t…
In physical human-robot interaction (pHRI), robots need to detect and react to intended and unintended contacts in a safe manner. Proprioceptive sensing capabilities and collision detection and identification techniques differ among commercially available robots, which means that also their sensitiv…
Like humans or animals, robots with compliant joints are capable of performing explosive or cyclic motions by making systematic use of energy storage and release, and it has been shown that they can outperform their rigid counterparts in terms of peak velocity. For rigid joint robots, there exist we
Improving robot systems via newly-developed sensing devices, control algorithms, or state estimators in order to obtain safe and efficient human-robot interaction as well as tactile manipulation skills requires standardized performance measurement protocols for objective comparison. Common protocols…
Kinematic redundancy enhances the dexterity and flexibility of robot manipulators. By exploiting the redundant degrees of freedom, auxiliary null space tasks can be carried out in addition to the primary task. Such auxiliary tasks are often formulated in terms of a performance or safety criterion th…
Interactions between robots and their environment give rise to external wrenches acting on the robot structure. The estimation of the resulting torques in the joints is fundamental in human-robot interaction to detect/identify collisions and perform suitable reaction strategies. Other applications m…
In practical robotic applications various types of tools are attached for manipulating objects. Besides adding gravitational load to the robot, which results in larger joint torques, such payloads influence the collision safety characteristics through changing surface curvature properties, reflected…
Close physical human-robot interaction makes it essential to ensure human safety. In particular, the intrinsic safety characteristics of a robot in terms of potential human injury have to be understood well. Then, minimal potential harm can be made a key requirement already at an early stage of the
Ensuring safety is a primary goal in physical human-robot interaction. In various collision experiments it was found that the robot's effective mass, velocity, and geometry are the key parameters which influence the human injury severity during an impact. Recently, a velocity controller was proposed…
Kinematic redundancy is a characteristic and beneficial property in collaborative robots nowadays as it enhances the flexibility and dexterity of the system. While the robot is manipulating an object, it is often necessary to kinematically reconfigure the robot, for example, when it obstructs the hu…
It has recently been shown that intrinsically elastic robots are capable of outperforming rigid robots in terms of peak velocity by making systematic use of energy storage and release. Certainly, high link side velocities are beneficial for performance, however, they also increase the probability of…
Many future application scenarios of robotics envision robotic agents to be in close physical interaction with humans: On the factory floor, robotic agents shall support their human co-workers with the dull and health threatening parts of their jobs. In their homes, robotic agents shall enable peopl…