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Cooperative control of dual-arm robots in different human-robot collaborative tasks

Xinbo Yu (School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China)
Shuang Zhang (School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China)
Liang Sun (School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China)
Yu Wang (Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China)
Chengqian Xue (School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China)
Bin Li (School of Automation and Electrical Engineering, Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, China)

Assembly Automation

ISSN: 0144-5154

Article publication date: 10 July 2019

Issue publication date: 18 February 2020

857

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to propose cooperative control strategies for dual-arm robots in different human–robot collaborative tasks in assembly processes. The authors set three different regions where robot performs different collaborative ways: “teleoperate” region, “co-carry” region and “assembly” region. Human holds the “master” arm of dual-arm robot to operate the other “follower” arm by our proposed controller in “teleoperation” region. Limited by the human arm length, “follower” arm is teleoperated by human to carry the distant object. In the “co-carry” region, “master” arm and “follower” arm cooperatively carry the object to the region close to the human. In “assembly” region, “follower” arm is used for fixing the object and “master” arm coupled with human is used for assembly.

Design/methodology/approach

A human moving target estimated method is proposed for decreasing efforts for human to move “master” arm, radial basis functions neural networks are used to compensate for uncertainties in dynamics of both arms. Force feedback is designed in “master” arm controller for human to perceive the movement of “follower” arm. Experimental results on Baxter robot platform show the effectiveness of this proposed method.

Findings

Experimental results on Baxter robot platform show the effectiveness of our proposed methods. Different human-robot collaborative tasks in assembly processes are performed successfully under our cooperative control strategies for dual-arm robots.

Originality/value

In this paper, cooperative control strategies for dual-arm robots have been proposed in different human–robot collaborative tasks in assembly processes. Three different regions where robot performs different collaborative ways are set: “teleoperation” region, “co-carry” region and “assembly” region.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61873297, the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant 2018M630074, the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. FRF-GF-18-027B and Beijing Science and Technology Project under Grant No. Z181100003118006.

Citation

Yu, X., Zhang, S., Sun, L., Wang, Y., Xue, C. and Li, B. (2020), "Cooperative control of dual-arm robots in different human-robot collaborative tasks", Assembly Automation, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 95-104. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-12-2018-0264

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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