Safe planning for human-robot interaction

Abstract

This paper presents a strategy for improving the safety of human-robot interaction by minimizing a danger criterion during the planning stage. This strategy is one part of the overall methodology for safe planning and control in human-robot interaction. The focus application is a hand-off task between an articulated robot and an inexpert human user. Two formulations of the danger criterion are proposed: a criterion assuming independent safety-related factors, and a criterion assuming mutually dependent factors. Simulations of the proposed planning strategy are presented for both 2D and 3D robots. The results indicate that a criterion based on scaled mutually dependent factors such as the robot inertia and the human robot distance generates safe, feasible paths for interaction. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.