Investigation of human behaviour in pushing and pulling tasks for direct manipulation of a collaborative robot

Abstract

This study is concerned with the human behaviour while pushing and pulling a trolley to get information about the characteristics of the human part in a physical human-robot interaction. The trolley was laden with three different weights and three different object sizes that should separate the connection between estimated weight and exerted force. The participants had to push and pull the trolley over a given path, similar to a real production scenario, e.g. in automotive assembly lines. Twenty-two people participated and were monitored by a VICON motion tracking system. The applied forces were gathered independently on each handle in three coordinates via a Kistler hand force measuring system. Results show that humans accelerate faster (jolt), higher (a), and get to higher velocities (v) when a certain amount of force is needed. Consequently enough feedback has to be implemented in novel collaborative assistant systems.