Human–robot interaction represents a critical factor in the design of personal robots as well as in the implementation of robot behavior and control. This work investigates and proposes solutions to the problem of controlling an anthropomorphic robot arm for personal assistance, by dealing with the peculiarities of its design, i.e. the mechanics of its cable-actuated, intrinsically compliant st...

With the rapid development of Aerial Physical Interaction, possibility to have aerial robots physically interacting with humans is attracting a growing interest. In one our previous works, we considered first systems in which human connected an vehicle by cable. There, developed compliant controller that allows robot pull toward desired position using forces only as indirect communication-chann...

Physical human-robot interaction and cooperation has become a topic of increasing importance and of major focus in robotics research. Industrial and domestic applications unifying the workspace of humans and robots are foreseeable in the close future and will require safe and dependable robot design and control. In this paper we will give an overview of our systematic evaluation of safety in hu...

Physical human-robot interaction and cooperation has become a topic of increasing importance and of major focus in robotics research. Industrial and domestic applications unifying the workspace of humans and robots are foreseeable in the close future and will require safe and dependable robot design and control. In this paper we will give an overview of our systematic evaluation of safety in hu...

Recent advances in robotics have been applied to automation in industrial manufacturing, with the primary purpose of optimizing practical systems in terms of such objective measures as accuracy, speed, and cost. This paper introduces research on mental commit robot that seeks a different direction that is not so rigidly dependent on such objective measures. The main goal of this research is to ...

We present results from an empirical study investigating the effect of embodiment and minimal gestures in an interactive drumming game consisting of an autonomous child-sized humanoid robot (KASPAR) playing with child participants. In this study, each participant played three games with a humanoid robot that played a drum whilst simultaneously making (or not making) head gestures. The three gam...

In this paper, we propose physically meaningful energy related safety indicators for robots sharing their workspace with humans. Based on these indicators, safety criteria are introduced as constraints in the control algorithm. The first constraint is placed on the kinetic energy of the robotic system to limit the amount of dissipated energy in case of collision. This constraint depends on the ...

This paper presents a robot search task (social tag) that uses social interaction, in the form of asking for help, as an integral component of task completion. Socially distributed perception is defined as a robot’s ability to augment its limited sensory capacities through social interaction. We describe the task of social tag and its implementation on the robot GRACE for the AAAI 2005 Mobile R...

If robots are to be introduced into the human world as assistants to aid a person in the completion of a manual task two key problems of today’s robots must be solved. The human–robot interface must be intuitive to use and the safety of the user with respect to injuries inflicted by collisions with the robot must be guaranteed. In this paper we describe the formulation and implementation of a c...

The light-weight robots developed at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) are characterized by their low inertial properties, torque sensing in each joint and a load to weight ratio similar to humans. These properties qualify them for applications requiring high mobility and direct interaction with human users or uncertain environments. An essential requirement for such a robot is that it must und...