The project focused on advancements in mechatronics towards a new compliant humanoid robot with full body impedance regulation, model-driven engineering to handle the complexity of interacting robotic systems both in simulation and real hardware, the analysis of human-human interaction in motion to identify and model human control strategies, modular approaches for flexible couplings between humans and robots in interaction, the interpretation and prediction of human motion, and the integration and evaluation of cognitive interaction in motion in demonstrations.
A new scaled-up COMAN+ robot with advanced actuation and improved design has been constructed and has been presented to the scientific community at the ICRA 2019 exhibition. It already has been used for interactively guided walking and compliant handling in human-robot cooperation. Through model-driven systems engineering, open-source dynamics simulations for the target platforms COMAN, COMAN+, KUKA LWR-IV+, Stäubli TX60 and Panda have been established and are widely used in the consortium. These mirror the control interfaces of the real robots and allow for transparent switching from simulation to real world. To this aim, a component-based modeling and simulation framework CoSiMA utilizing OROCOS was developed together with a novel scheme for combining and integrating respective domain specific software languages, with particular emphasis on real-time capability. A dedicated toolchain was devised and was validated to model a tetra-robot handling of large and rather heavy workpieces.
A second focus was the investigation of human-human interaction in motion. Sensorimotor control strategies for catching have been investigated in experiments with humans exploiting motion capture. Experiments shed light on interpersonal coupling, perception of deceptive movements, and the influence of dynamic variables on the kinematics of juggling. Coupled human walking has been investigated and models are developed and used to model compliant walking in contact. Respective evaluation measures that specifically target the physical, force-based interaction were derived from the experimental data.
New skills were developed. Dynamical systems based methods for bi-manual coordination, soft catching, and to establish contacts smoothly were developed and implemented on a pair of Kuka-LWR+ and the COMAN+. Human throwing data was modeled and a respective real-time, full-body synthesis of robotic behavior was realized. Walking under constraints, step-planning to maintain and optimize contact, and coupled walking algorithms are being developed. An approach derived from human data models impedance adaptation based on perceived interaction forces in cyclic tasks and has been integrated in the CoSiMA simulation framework.
The project targets robotic experimentation to demonstrate the step-changes towards compliant interaction. Requirements have been assessed to meet the overall targeted technical readiness levels of the final experimentation scenarios. By means of vertical integration, the developed methods are embedded in the model-driven systems engineering approach. A fully modeled tetra-arm manipulation the allows for human-interaction was realized. Furthermore, VR and real-time animation, and control through CoSiMA have been integrated to enable safe throwing and catching in VR while running the real-time robot control system of the COMAN. The latter has already entered first successful testing with physiotherapy patients for increasing training intensity. Learning of manipulator dynamics, hybrid models, and friction identification has been focused on to enhance the underlying model-based control.
