Cooperative robot manipulator control with human 'pinning' for robot assistive task execution

Abstract

This paper presents the use of a multi-agent controller in application to a human-robot cooperative task where the human is the lead and two robotic manipulators act as agents allowing for physical assistance of the human in a lifting task: the human aids in providing direction for two synchronized robot arms placing a tray with a water glass in a human-robot interaction experiment. Novel adaptive multi-agent theory is exploited to achieve precise coordination between the arms, while being lead by the human. A novel finite-time adaptation scheme aids changing structures, such as the removal of the leading agent, so that consensus and synchronisation is retained. This is permitted by the decentralized control structure, where each agent is supported by an agent-specific controller and information exchanged between the agents is limited to position and velocity of each manipulator. Thus, the controller is robust to structural changes in the multi-agent network, e.g. the removal of the pinning agent. © Springer International Publishing 2013.