Automated assistance robot system for transferring model-free objects from/to human hand using vision/force control

Abstract

This paper will propose an assistance robot system which is able to transfer model-free objects from/to human hand with the help of visual servoing and force control. The proposed robot system is fully automated, i.e. the handing-over task is performed exclusively by the robot and the human will be considered as the weakest party, e.g. elderly, disabled, blind, etc. The proposed system is supported with different real time vision algorithms to detect, to recognize and to track: 1. Any object located on flat surface or conveyor. 2. Any object carried by human hand. 3. The loadfree human hand. Furthermore, the proposed robot system has integrated vision and force feedback in order to: 1. Perform the handing-over task successfully starting from the free space motion until the full physical human-robot integration. 2. Guarantee the safety of the human and react to the motion of the human hand during the handing-over task. The proposed system has shown a great efficiency during the experiments. © Springer International Publishing 2013.