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Human-like motion planning of robotic arms based on human arm motion patterns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2022

Jing Zhao
Affiliation:
Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
Chengyun Wang
Affiliation:
Faculty of Materials and Manufacturing, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
Biyun Xie*
Affiliation:
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Biyun.Xie@uky.edu
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Abstract

Robots with human-like appearances and structures are usually well accepted in the human–robot interaction. However, compared with human-like appearances and structures, the human-like motion plays a much more critical role in improving the efficiency and safety of the human–robot interaction. This paper develops a human-like motion planner based on human arm motion patterns (HAMPs) to fulfill the human–robot object handover tasks. First, a handover task is divided into two sub-tasks, that is, pick-up and delivery, and HAMPs are extracted for these two sub-tasks separately. The resulting HAMPs are analyzed, and a method is proposed to select HAMPs that can represent the characteristics of the human arm motion. Then the factors affecting the duration of the movement primitives are analyzed, and the relationship between the duration of the movement primitives and these factors is determined. Based on the selected HAMP and the computed duration of the movement primitives, a human-like motion planning framework is developed to generate the human-like motion for the robotic arms. Finally, this motion planner is verified by the human–robot handover experiments using a KUKA IIWA robot. It shows that the resulting trajectories can correctly reflect the relative relationship between the joints in the human arm motion and are very close to the recorded human arm trajectories. Furthermore, the proposed motion planning method is compared with the motion planning method based on minimum total potential energy. The results show that the proposed method can generate more human-like motion.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press
Figure 0

Figure 1. Expression of the human arm and the robotic arm motion. SWE plane is the reference plane and perpendicular to the horizontal plane. $\Phi$ is swivel angle, p and O are hand position and posture, respectively. The human arm triangle $\Delta \text{SW}{{\text{E}}_{1}}$ is shown in (a). The robotic arm triangle $\Delta \text{SW}{{\text{E}}_{1}}$ is shown in (b).

Figure 1

Figure 2. The pick-up sub-task experimental scene and the target point distribution are shown in (a) and (b), respectively. The delivery sub-task experiment scene and the starting and target points distribution are shown in (c) and (d), respectively.

Figure 2

Table I. The Top Five HAMPs.

Figure 3

Table II. Pick-up: The top five HAMPs in each phase.

Figure 4

Table III. Delivery: The top five HAMPs in each phase.

Figure 5

Figure 3. MPCSI values of HAMPs in the first and second phases of the pick-up task are in (a) and (b), respectively. MPCSI values of HAMPs in the first and second phases of the delivery task are in (c) and (d), respectively. The black boxes are the most representative HAMPs.

Figure 6

Figure 4. The primitive duration to the total duration ratio statistics. The horizontal axis shows the ratio of primitive duration to the total duration. The pick-up task and delivery task are shown in (a) and (b), respectively.

Figure 7

Figure 5. The statistical results of the relationship between ${R}_{\Phi }$ and $\Delta \Phi$ in the pick-up task and the delivery task are in (a) and (b), respectively. The relationship between ${R}_{\Phi }$ and $\Delta \Phi$ of participant 1 and participant 2 is in (c) and (d), respectively.

Figure 8

Figure 6. The relationship between ${R}_{\Phi }$ and $R_{d}$ in the whole moving process and the first and second motion phases in the pick-up task is in (a), (b), and (c), respectively. The relationship between ${R}_{\Phi }$ and $R_{d}$ in the whole moving process and the first and second motion phases in the delivery task is in (d), (e), and (f), respectively.

Figure 9

Figure 7. Motion planning framework.

Figure 10

Figure 8. HAMP decision algorithm for delivery task.

Figure 11

Figure 9. The human arm object handover task is in (a). The object handover task of the robot arm based on HMP method proposed in this paper is (b). The object handover task of the robot arm based on MTPE human-like motion planning method is (c).

Figure 12

Figure 10. RULA score changes during object handover motion. RULA scores of the big arm, forearm, and wrist of the human arm and robotic arm are in (a), (b), and (c), respectively. The total RULA score of the human arm and robotic arm is shown in (d). The red curve shows RULA trend of the human arm. The blue curve shows RULA change trend of the robot based on the proposed motion planning method. The green curve shows RULA change trend of the robot based on MTPE planning method.

Figure 13

Figure 11. The proposed motion planning method experiment is shown in (a). MTPE planning method experiment is shown in (b).

Figure 14

Figure 12. The first four joint trajectories of the proposed motion planning method are shown in (a). The first four joint trajectories of MTPE planning method are shown in (b).