Controller design of a robotic assistant for the transport of large and fragile objects

This paper deals with the design of a robotic assistant for the transport of large and fragile objects. We propose a new collaborative robotic controller that fulfills the main requirements of co-transportation tasks of large and fragile objects: to execute any trajectory in a collaborative mode while minimizing the stress applied on the object by both partners in order to avoid damaging it. This controller prevents the robot from applying torques on the object while maintaining a desired orientation of the object along the transport trajectory in order to follow the operator. An original feature of our approach is to care about torques applied by both partners (not only by operator) during any co-manipulation trajectory execution. It leads to a novel outcome: the minimization of stress applied by both partners on a large and fragile object during its transport on any trajectory. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach in a collaborative transportation task.