Towards the Safety of Human-in-the-Loop Robotics: Challenges and Opportunities for Safety Assurance of Robotic Co-Workers

The success of the human-robot co-worker team in a flexible manufacturing environment where robots learn from demonstration heavily relies on the correct and safe operation of the robot. How this can be achieved is a challenge that requires addressing both technical as well as human-centric research questions. In this paper we discuss the state of the art in safety assurance, existing as well as emerging standards in this area, and the need for new approaches to safety assurance in the context of learning machines. We then focus on robotic learning from demonstration, the challenges these techniques pose to safety assurance and indicate opportunities to integrate safety considerations into algorithms "by design". Finally, from a human-centric perspective, we stipulate that, to achieve high levels of safety and ultimately trust, the robotic co-worker must meet the innate expectations of the humans it works with. It is our aim to stimulate a discussion focused on the safety aspects of human-in-the-loop robotics, and to foster multidisciplinary collaboration to address the research challenges identified

Simple virtual slip force sensor for walking biped robots

This paper presents a novel simple Virtual Slip Force Sensor (VSFS) for a walking biped. Bipeds walking stability is critical and they tend to lose it easily in real environments. Among the significant aspects that affect the stability is the availability of the required friction force which is necessary for the robot not to slip. In this paper we propose the use of the virtual sensor to detect the slip force. The design structure of the VSFS consists of two steps, in the first step it utilizes the measured acceleration of the center of mass (CoM) and the ZMP signals in the simple linear inverted pendulum model (LIPM) to estimate the position of the CoM, and in the second step the Newton law is employed to find the total ground reaction force (GRF) for each leg based on the position of CoM. Then both the estimated force and the measured force from the sensors assembled at the foot are used to detect the slip force. The validity of the proposed estimation method was confirmed by simulations on 3D dynamics model of the humanoid robot SURALP while walking. The results are promising and prove themselves well

Implementation of Nonlinear Model Predictive Path-Following Control for an Industrial Robot

Many robotic applications, such as milling, gluing, or high precision measurements, require the exact following of a pre-defined geometric path. In this paper, we investigate the real-time feasible implementation of model predictive path-following control for an industrial robot. We consider constrained output path following with and without reference speed assignment. We present results from an implementation of the proposed model predictive path-following controller on a KUKA LWR IV robot.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; final revised versio

Practice of law in the provisioning of accessibility facilities for person with disabilities in Malaysia

Malaysia’s significant changes can be seen clearly through the improvement of social welfare of the disabled and people with disabilities. Although the governments has carried out various policies and provide facilities as well as provision for the disabled but there are still many obstacles encountered by people with disabilities, especially the legal and the accessibility of facilities and services. Therefore, this paper attempts to discuss the practice of law relating of legal procedure particularly for disabled users which affects the movement of these people from one destination to another. This paper discusses the practice of law adopted in the preparation of facilities for disabled people to help them make movement independently. The study was conducted by secondary data to the Malaysia legal and policies for disabled person by comparing with United Kingdom (UK). Malaysia has come out with a strong legal framework for disabled person through People with Disabilities Act 2008 (Act 685). There are several areas in the act that still can be improved to support disabled person

Experiments in cooperative manipulation: A system perspective

In addition to cooperative dynamic control, the system incorporates real time vision feedback, a novel programming technique, and a graphical high level user interface. By focusing on the vertical integration problem, not only these subsystems are examined, but also their interfaces and interactions. The control system implements a multi-level hierarchical structure; the techniques developed for operator input, strategic command, and cooperative dynamic control are presented. At the highest level, a mouse-based graphical user interface allows an operator to direct the activities of the system. Strategic command is provided by a table-driven finite state machine; this methodology provides a powerful yet flexible technique for managing the concurrent system interactions. The dynamic controller implements object impedance control; an extension of Nevill Hogan's impedance control concept to cooperative arm manipulation of a single object. Experimental results are presented, showing the system locating and identifying a moving object catching it, and performing a simple cooperative assembly. Results from dynamic control experiments are also presented, showing the controller's excellent dynamic trajectory tracking performance, while also permitting control of environmental contact force

Identification of Haptic Based Guiding Using Hard Reins

This paper presents identifications of human-human interaction in which one person with limited auditory and visual perception of the environment (a follower) is guided by an agent with full perceptual capabilities (a guider) via a hard rein along a given path. We investigate several identifications of the interaction between the guider and the follower such as computational models that map states of the follower to actions of the guider and the computational basis of the guider to modulate the force on the rein in response to the trust level of the follower. Based on experimental identification systems on human demonstrations show that the guider and the follower experience learning for an optimal stable state-dependent novel 3rd and 2nd order auto-regressive predictive and reactive control policies respectively. By modeling the follower's dynamics using a time varying virtual damped inertial system, we found that the coefficient of virtual damping is most appropriate to explain the trust level of the follower at any given time. Moreover, we present the stability of the extracted guiding policy when it was implemented on a planar 1-DoF robotic arm. Our findings provide a theoretical basis to design advanced human-robot interaction algorithms applicable to a variety of situations where a human requires the assistance of a robot to perceive the environment