Human-Robot Interaction in the Coordinated Manipulation of an Object

Abstract

Robotic arms become more common in daily life. However, the physical human-robot interaction still needs to be improved. Therefore, I examined which algorithms can improve the interaction in a joint task of a robotic agent and a human, in which they moved an object together. Three algorithms were examined on a robotic manipulandum, namely the first where the robotic agent produced forces towards the human, the second towards the goal and the third towards both the human and the goal. The results show that the algorithm that produced forces towards the goal scores the best in terms of both the trial time and the subjective performance measures (the questionnaire). The algorithm that produced forces towards both the goal and the human scores slightly better in terms of the stability, though in terms of the trial time this algorithm scores the worst. The algorithm that produced forces towards the human scores the worst in terms of both the stability and subjective performance measures. The ranking of the algorithms does not depend on the object size, although a large object (radius 1.5 cm) is easier to manipulate than a small object (radius 0.5 cm), indicated both by the trial time and the subjective performance measures. The ranking of the algorithms does depend on the goal location, which is indicated both by the objective (trial time and stability) and the subjective performance measures. To conclude, the physical interaction between a human and a robotic agent is most effective if the agent produces forces only towards the goal, not towards the human.