Robot-human collaboration for new robotic applications

Abstract

A new robotic system, which executes a task in cooperation with humans, will be discussed in this paper. We are going to consider a task, in which robots and humans manipulate an object together in coordination. To design a controller, we assume that the system has no direct mechanical interactions among robots and humans. That is, robots and humans are assume to have interactions each other only through the object. We also assume that the humans are manipulating an object around a point fixed to the object. Under these assumptions, we design a controller for each robot so that the object has prescribed passive dynamics. We prove the stability of the resultant system using the Popov's Hyper Stability Theorem assuming that the passivity conditions for the humans are satisfied. The resultant control algorithm is applied to an experimental system, which consists of two industrial manipulators each of which has six degrees of freedom. The manipulation of an object by these robots and an operator illustrate the proposed control algorithm.