Workshop IROS 2015

Recent advances in robotic hardware and control now enable robots to interact physically with humans. This mode of interaction opens up entirely new methods for human-robot collaboration, as physical interaction provides a direct and intuitive channel to synchronize movements and communicate intentions; in partner dance this channel is called "the connection".

Achieving "the connection" places challenging requirements on the safety, robustness and adaptivity on robots. But what exactly are the safety requirements on such robots? And how can such requirements be formalized? From a control perspective, classical high-gain position control is not feasible due to high potential contact forces. How can compliance and force control be best exploited to enable physical interaction? Should we sacrifice accurate tracking?

One of the advantages of human-robot collaboration is that humans can demonstrate solutions to novel tasks to the robot. Thus, robots will have to be able to learn new skills and adapt to novel task contexts. Which forms of imitation learning should be used? And how can we associate the correct solution with a given task context?

Finally, what are relevant and profitable applications for physical human-robot collaboration? In which cases is it beneficial over fully automated solutions? How can it facilitate customization of products in assembly lines? Can it also be used in medical applications, such as surgery and rehabilitation? Can technologies for physical human-robot collaboration be extended to wearable robots and prosthetics? These and other questions will be addressed in lectures and an expert panel discussion.

The objective of this workshop is to bring together actors from both research and industry to discuss the open research questions above, and acquire an overview of practical applications in this domain.