Transparent Robot Behavior by Adding Intuitive Visual and Acoustic Feedback to Motion Replanning

Nowadays robots are able to work safely close to humans. They are light-weight, intrinsically safe and capable of avoiding obstacles as well as understand and predict human motions. In this collaborative scenario, the communication between humans and robots is a fundamental aspect to achieve good efficiency and ergonomics in the task execution. A lot of research has been made related to robot understanding and prediction of the human behavior, allowing the robot to replan its motion trajectories. This work is focused on the communication of the robot's intentions to the human to make its goals and planned trajectories easily understandable. Visual and acoustic information has been added to give the human an intuitive feedback to immediately understand the robot's plan. This allows a better interaction and makes the humans feel more comfortable, without any feeling of anxiety related to the unpredictability of the robot motion. Experiments have been conducted in a collaborative assembly scenario. The results of these tests were collected in questionnaires, in which the humans reported the differences and improvements they experienced using the feedback communication system.