Task Location to Improve Human-Robot Cooperation: A Condition Number-Based Approach

This paper proposes and implements an approach to evaluate human-robot cooperation aimed at achieving high performance. Both the human arm and the manipulator are modeled as a closed kinematic chain. The proposed task performance criterion is based on the condition number of this closed kinematic chain. The robot end-effector is guided by the human operator via an admittance controller to complete a straight-line segment motion, which is the desired task. The best location of the selected task is determined by maximizing the minimum of the condition number along the path. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using a criterion related to ergonomics. The experiments are executed with several subjects using a KUKA LWR robot to repeat the specified motion to evaluate the introduced approach. A comparison is presented between the current proposed approach and our previously implemented approach where the task performance criterion was based on the manipulability index of the closed kinematic chain. The results reveal that the condition number-based approach improves the human-robot cooperation in terms of the achieved accuracy, stability, and human comfort, but at the expense of task speed and completion time. On the other hand, the manipulability-index-based approach improves the human-robot cooperation in terms of task speed and human comfort, but at the cost of the achieved accuracy.