Increasing Safety in Physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) with Cap...

Safety in physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) is a highly discussedand investigated manner. Strict safety standard and technical specifications(namely ISO/TS 15066) impose highly conservative restrictions. Ubiquitoussensing of the robot’s environment is required to avoid undesired contacts withlarge forces between humans and robot. Capacitive sensors offer a costeffective on-robot solution for near field perception and tactile sensing, e.g.,when embedded in a soft skin. Capacitive Proximity Sensors allow the robot toreduce their speed ahead of potential collision or stop entirely, if necessary.During physical interaction monitoring of the force exerted by the robot isnecessary to avoid harming the human. The deformation of soft dielectrics canused to sense these forces. Especially in rehabilitation robotics, where robotsare used in aiding human with reduced sensation of pain, such monitoring offorce is vital. To reduce the development and extensive testing time for suchsensors the need for simulation of Human-Robot contact is inevitable. Suchsimulation tools (e.g. Simulation Open Framework Architecture (SOFA) or others)can also be used as digital twins during operation for further monitoring. Theproposed talk will present results from previous work (see below), ongoing researchand an outlook on possible future research.