Symbiotic human-robot collaboration: multimodal control using function blocks

Abstract

Complex assembly tasks require increased flexibility and adaptability, as well as higher effort on the conventional (re)programing of robots. To solve such challenges, this paper presents a function block-enabled multimodal control scheme for symbiotic human-robot collaborative assembly. Data/event-driven function blocks with smart decision algorithms are used for human-centred robot control with multimodal fusion. Then, multimodal control commands in the form of haptics, gesture and voice are defined as the inputs of the function blocks to trigger task execution. This novel scheme facilitates the implementation of the multimodal symbiotic human-robot collaborative assembly with enhanced stability and flexibility.