Towards X-ray medical imaging with robots in the open: safety without compromising performances

In this paper, a control solution featuring an energetic constraint is developed to improve the safety of a robotic manipulator sharing its workspace with humans. This general control structure, exploits a generic safe controller that ensures the respect of multiple constraints thanks to a Linear Quadratic Problem formulation. With a unified energetic formulation, the controller allows to explicitly limit both the kinetic energy when moving and the wrench applied to the environment in case of contact with an unexpected obstacle. This control approach is experimented on a redundant Kuka LWR4+ robot which end-effector shall precisely point toward a given location while following a trajectory.