Vision-based control architecture for human–robot hand-over applications

Human–robot collaboration will be an essential part of the production processes in the factories of tomorrow. In this paper, a human–robot hand-over control strategy is presented. Human and robot can be both giver and receiver. A path-planning algorithm drives the robotic manipulator towards the hand of the human and permits to adapt the pose of the tool center point of the robot to the pose of the hand of the human worker. The movements of the operator are acquired with a multi 3D-sensors setup so to avoid any possible occlusion related to the presence of the robot or other dynamic obstacles. Estimation of the predicted position of the hand is performed to reduce the waiting time of the operator during the hand-over task. The hardware setup is described, and the results of experimental tests, conducted to verify the effectiveness of the control strategy, are presented and discussed.