Proximity-informed robot control through whole-body artificial skin

Abstract

Human-Robot Interaction is the field of robotics dedicated to the understanding, design, and evaluation of robotic systems for use by or with humans. Safety is one of the most important aspects this field will have to deal with in the years to come. In this work, pre-contact safety is adressed through the use of an artificial skin developed in our lab that integrates proximiy sensing. Proximity sensor readings are transformed into 3D data, which will later inform the control algorithms. Two different avoidance controls have been implemented: “A Depth Space Approach to Human-Robot Collision Avoidance” [1] and “Collision Avoidance with Proximity Servoing for Redundant Serial Robot Manipulators” [2]. The implementations of these two controllers form, with the addition of a third controller that improves upon both of them, a framework for the comparison and improvement of the current state of art in safe robot controllers.