Riassunto analitico
In the last years, the global market demand for collaborative robot systems, capable of interacting with humans in a safe way in an industrial environment, has increased rapidly. However, the range of applications is not limited and driven just by the industrial environment but it is also becoming more common in domestic applications where the human acceptance towards a better user experience and a more intuitive interaction with robots is increasing continuously. An essential requirement for those robots is to have a robust and reliable perception system to guarantee safety throughout the entire operation. The guidelines and requirements towards the sensor system for a human-robot interaction in the industrial environment are entirely described in the latest safety related technical specification document ISO/TS 15066 released recently by the International Organization for Standardization. Continuous research on capacitive sensing applied to the robotics field is giving new possible sensing applications of this well known technology as an alternative or as complementary solution to optical and vision based sensor systems. Within this work a single-ended measurement mode (SMM) system for capacitive sensing has been developed, that together with other sensor technologies, can be used for proximity perception and for human-robot collaborative applications in a shared workspace. In particular, a custom transmitter daughterboard including the single-ended measurement circuitry for capacitive sensing is designed and integrated as a fundamental part of the sensor front-end circuitry. The properties and the performances of the developed sensor system are evaluated by means of experimental investigations. Lastly, the SMM capacitive sensor system is examined in a use-case scenario on a assembly process with Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) for gesture recognition and proximity perception for robot-speed control.
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Abstract
In the last years, the global market demand for collaborative robot systems, capable of interacting with humans in a safe way in an industrial environment, has increased rapidly. However, the range of applications is not limited and driven just by the industrial environment but it is also becoming more common in domestic applications where the human acceptance towards a better user experience and a more intuitive interaction with robots is increasing continuously. An essential requirement for those robots is to have a robust and reliable perception system to guarantee safety throughout the entire operation. The guidelines and requirements towards the sensor system for a human-robot interaction in the industrial environment are entirely described in the latest safety related technical specification document ISO/TS 15066 released recently by the International Organization for Standardization. Continuous research on capacitive sensing applied to the robotics field is giving new possible sensing applications of this well known technology as an alternative or as complementary solution to optical and vision based sensor systems. Within this work a single-ended measurement mode (SMM) system for capacitive sensing has been developed, that together with other sensor technologies, can be used for proximity perception and for human-robot collaborative applications in a shared workspace. In particular, a custom transmitter daughterboard including the single-ended measurement circuitry for capacitive sensing is designed and integrated as a fundamental part of the sensor front-end circuitry. The properties and the performances of the developed sensor system are evaluated by means of experimental investigations. Lastly, the SMM capacitive sensor system is examined in a use-case scenario on a assembly process with Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) for gesture recognition and proximity perception for robot-speed control.
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