Level position and obstacle avoidance control for human-robot co-manipulation of a rigid object

In this paper, velocity control is designed for a robotic arm to assist a human while holding and manipulating a rigid body. The principal tasks of the robot manipulator are: to keep in a level position the held object and to avoid obstacles during its manipulation. Due to the human-robot collaboration, the movement of the robot manipulator is constrained so that the robot's motion does not perturb the human arm. The proposed velocity and obstacle avoidance controller is based on the potential field that contains attractive and repulsive forces. Simulation results show that with the proposed control, the robotic arm can position the held object and avoid near obstacles without disturbing the human arm. Copyright (c) 2023 The Authors.