Position-detecting device for measurement of human motion in human-machine interaction

In this study, a human-machine interface device and a motion controller are developed for a human-machine interactive system. The interface device can simultaneously detect relative positional data as well as force data generated between the human operator and the robot during their interaction. Our proposed modified admittance controller is designed to handle the detected positional data as well as force data in order to generate familiar and intuitive robot motion for a human operator. The proposed control system enables the human operator to interact with the robot intuitively and with stability. In particular, the proposed interface device mechanism, which provides an adequate stiffness for the human-robot interaction, improves the stability of the control system. To confirm that the performance of the proposed system, power assistance experiments for a human forearm are carried out. Experimental results show that the proposed interface device and proposed controller are effective for human-robot interaction.