Mobile manipulators as robot co-workers: autonomy and interaction in the human-robot collaboration

Abstract

In work environments, the use of dexterous mobile manipulators as co-workers poses several challenges with respect to the human-robot collaboration. On the one hand, its focus is in the autonomy (i.e. the mobile manipulators are required to cooperate with humans by performing autonomously complementary tasks while moving around in the human environment and in their presence). On the other hand, its focus is in the interaction (i.e. with a virtual interaction via teleoperation, or with a physical interaction through an object jointly handled). The project summarized in this paper deals with the development of planning, reasoning and control algorithms, and of the necessary software to provide mobile manipulators with the autonomy (mainly through the simultaneous planning of tasks and motions) and the capacity of interaction mainly through teleoperation) to allow the cooperation with humans.