VRoboCoop - Trajectory Planning to Achieve Reliable and Trustworthy Human-Robot Collaboration

The collaboration between humans and robots offers opportunities that are not achievable separately. However, a strategy for collaboration is required, as they differ in their behavior and perception. This work-in-progress paper outlines future research activities in this field, focusing on the integration of collision avoidance into robot movements. Therefore, trajectory planning is formulated as an optimization problem, which considers the human being but also finds the optimal trajectory according to a certain criterion. This reduces the cycle time or the energy required to drive the robot. The description as a multibody system enables a digital twin allowing planning in advance, but also the possibility of real-time control. This creates the basis for trust in the collaboration.

I. Introduction

Since the development of the first industrial robot in the 1950s, many further developments have taken place, particu-larly in the interaction with the environment, the tasks to be accomplished, the materials used to build the robot, and the robot controls itself [1]. In the beginning, each robot worked entirely on its own, whereas today, robots interact with each other and with humans.