In this section, we briefly describe the project's progress w.r.t. the Core Technology (CTO), Usability (UO), Acceptability (AO), and Standardization (SO) objectives.
The CTO has seen solid advancements by the work of WP2, led by UT, and WP3 led by INAIL. Our developments in the first reporting period focused on the human movement measurement techniques and sensor fusion, human dynamic modelling and a number of preliminary works on the development of human ergonomics factors and online model calibration tools, and finally model integration. An additional advancement concerns the development of Fellow-Assistant robots that range from simple and modular load compensation mechanisms (Fellow-Assistant WearBots) to collaborative robots (Fellow-Assistant CoBots) with advanced socio-physical interaction skills. These developments have been carried out in WP8 (Fellow-Assistant Robot Bodies), led by IIT.
In parallel to the Fellow-Assistant robot developments, Fellow-Feeling wearables (FFW) that include low-cost worker state monitoring and feedback devices have been designed and developed in part within WP4, led by UNIPI.
The project’s advancements in the development of multi-modal perception and interpretation during the first period has been on the analysis of the underlying requirements in industrial setting (with emphasis on SOPHIA use-cases) and the development of the tools to interpret the capture multi-sensory data to enable classifications of human-robot interaction. This has been the work of WP5 led by UM. The project’s progress in the domain of shared intelligence for collaboration has focused on plan Generation and task decomposition between humans and robots, contingency handling for safety and ergonomics, social interaction for fluent collaboration, and shared control principles for WearBot and CoBot. Finally, during the first year, WP7 contributions have been: I) development of a self-tuning impedance controller that adaptively regulates quasi-static parameters of the robot, by distinguishing between expected interactions and external disturbances, II) creation of adaptive planning strategies that provide the system the ability to cope with unexpected environmental and operational changes, III) design of an optimization-based algorithm which regulates the Cartesian stiffness and the damping of an impedance-controlled robot without relying on force/torque measurements.
Usability Objectives (UO) are to challenge and demonstrate the contribution of SOPHIA’s core technologies to the improved flexibility, ergonomics, and interaction ability of human-plus-robot systems in realistic production use-cases. In the first year of the project, we explicitly steered the project developments through a careful definition and simulation of the project use-cases: VW, HIDRIA, and HKP. Acceptability objectives (AO) have seen advancements through the demonstration of a coherent reduction of cognitive/physical load. Whereas Standardization objectives (SO) were pursued through the analysis of the existing standards in human-robot collaboration and work-related musculoskeletal risks.
