Integrated sensors system for human safety during cooperating with industrial robots for handing-over and assembling tasks

Human safety is the main concern which prevents performing some tasks requiring physical interaction between human and robot. Therefore, the safety concept was previously based on eliminating contact between human and robots. This paper will propose a robot system which integrates different types of sensors to ensure human safety during the physical human robot interaction. The implemented sensors are vision, force and sensitive skin. Using vision system, the robot will be able to detect and recognize human face, loadfree human hand and any object carried by human hand (active hand). Furthermore, it will help the robot to define in which directions the force should be applied and what are the dangerous directions for human safety. The force sensor will help the robot to react to the motion of the human hand during the handing-over or assembling task. The sensitive skin will prevent any collision between the human and the robot arm. The proposed system is supported with a voice system for informing human about the actual status of the system. (C) The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.