Anthropomorphic Robot Assistants – Giving the Human a Helping Hand

Abstract

Robot assistants, which are employed outside traditional manufacturing applications, can support flexibility by solving diverse tasks in cooperation with human operators. Two mobile robot assistants, Care-O-bot and rob@work have been built and installed at Fraunhofer IPA in order to assist human users in home and production environments. Intuitive and dependable operation is a major prerequisite for being able to apply the systems safely and successfully in unmodified natural environments inhabited by humans.