Development of Proactive Human-Robot Coworking

Abstract:
This paper describes research in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) aimed at making robots into intelligent collaborators with humans. Effective HRI is critical to improving the safety and efficiency of many robotic applications. The method being investigated leverages a novel markerless human motion capture system to identify a human’s location as they move around a workcell. This data is used as a constraint in a robot motion planner to anticipate collisions between the robot and the person and proactively replan robot motion to avoid a collision. Experiments show that these systems are capable of operating at the speed and level of accuracy needed to effectively avoid collisions.