Tactile sensing for physical human-robot interaction in shared payload tasks

Physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) is a major challenge in robotics, especially when related to collaborative operations involving the handling of heavy payloads by potentially dangerous robots. In this chapter, we present a sensing architecture designed for shared payload tasks and implemented to accomplish collaborative car windshield manipulation. The pHRI problem is tackled by implementing voluntary contact recognition leveraging data-driven methodologies, ensuring that robot motion is enabled only when the operator is deliberately interacting with the robot. Test bench experiments are eventually presented to show the functionality of the handles along with the integration of the devices on a vacuum gripper for implementation on an industrial robotic manipulator.