Collision avoidance system for collaborative robotics

In this paper a real-time collision avoidance algorithm, based on the method of artificial potentials an intended for collaborative robotics applications was studied. Within this work, the movements of a person are detected and ac-quired by a vision system and a dummy, developed to interact with a robot in a simulated workspace, replicates these actions. Ellipsoids are then de-fined to entirely include several parts of the dummy and the end-effector of the robot. The minimum distance between the ellipsoids of the dummy and the one of the end-effector is the input of the collision avoidance algorithm. The results of tests are presented to show the effectiveness of the algorithm. Finally, the influence of the velocity of the obstacle on the capability of the algorithm of ensuring safe collision avoidance is analyzed.