HMI for cooperative robot Kuka youBot based on Electromyography technique

The ways in which humans and machines interact have changed as new technologies have been introduced into practice. At this moment, the trend is to simplify the interaction between man and machine, making the interfaces as intuitive and easy to use as possible. In this purpose, human-machine interfaces based on voice commands, gestures and even interfaces based on electrobiological signals generated by human body have been successfully developed. In this paper, the authors show the current stage, steps and experiments performed to develop a human-machine interface based on the electromyography technique. The proposed procedure involves the collection of electrical signals generated by muscles and their transformation into usable signals for the control of a robot by processing them. The interface was connected with the Kuka youBot two-arm cooperative robot and allowed control of its joints. Thus, the movement of the user’s arm, resulted by muscle contraction, is transposed into joints movement of the robotic arm. At the end of the paper are presented the conclusions of the experiments performed, the utility, but also the directions of future development for the proposed concept.