Paper:
Bilaterally Shared Haptic Perception for Human-Robot Collaboration in Grasping Operation
Yoshihiro Tanaka*1, Shogo Shiraki*1, Kazuki Katayama*1, Kouta Minamizawa*2, and Domenico Prattichizzo*3,*4
*1Nagoya Institute of Technology
Gokiso, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 466-8555, Japan
*2Keio University Graduate School of Media Design
4-1-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 223-8526, Japan
*3Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics, University of Siena
Via Roma 56, Siena 53100, Italy
*4Department of Human Centered Mechatronics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia
Via Morego 30, Genova 16163, Italy
Tactile sensations are crucial for achieving precise operations. A haptic connection between a human operator and a robot has the potential to promote smooth human-robot collaboration (HRC). In this study, we assemble a bilaterally shared haptic system for grasping operations, such as both hands of humans using a bottle cap-opening task. A robot arm controls the grasping force according to the tactile information from the human that opens the cap with a finger-attached acceleration sensor. Then, the grasping force of the robot arm is fed back to the human using a wearable squeezing display. Three experiments are conducted: measurement of the just noticeable difference in the tactile display, a collaborative task with different bottles under two conditions, with and without tactile feedback, including psychological evaluations using a questionnaire, and a collaborative task under an explicit strategy. The results obtained showed that the tactile feedback provided the confidence that the cooperative robot was adjusting its action and improved the stability of the task with the explicit strategy. The results indicate the effectiveness of the tactile feedback and the requirement for an explicit strategy of operators, providing insight into the design of an HRC with bilaterally shared haptic perception.
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