Research Area:  Metaheuristic Computing
One of the challenging aspects of robotics research is to successfully establish a human-like behavioural control strategy for human–robot handover, since a robotic controller is further complicated by the dynamic nature of the human response. This paper consequently highlights the development of an appropriate set of behaviour-based control for robot-to-human object handover by first understanding an equivalent human–human handover. The optimized hybrid position and impedance control was implemented to ensure good stability, adaptability and comfort of the robot in the object handover tasks. Moreover, a questionnaire technique was employed to gather information from the participants concerning their evaluations of the developed control system. The results demonstrate that the quantitative measurement of performance of the human-inspired control strategy can be considered acceptable for seamless human–robot handovers. This also provided significant satisfaction with the overall control performance in the robotic control system, in which the robot can dexterously pass the object to the receiver in a timely and natural manner without the risk of harm or injury by the robot. Furthermore, the survey responses were in agreement with the parallel test outcomes, demonstrating significant satisfaction with the overall performance of the robot–human interaction, as measured by an average rating of 4.20 on a five-point scale.
Keywords:  
object handover
robot-to-human object handover
human–robot interaction
human–human interaction
hybrid position/force control
impedance control
human-like behavioural control
Author(s) Name:  Paramin Neranon and Tanapong Sutiphotinun
Journal name:  Applied Sciences
Conferrence name:  
Publisher name:  MDPI
DOI:  10.3390/app11104437
Volume Information:  Volume 11,Issue 10
Paper Link:   https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/10/4437