Robust human position estimation in cooperative robotic cells

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2021

Authors

António Amorim (Author) Other; Diana Guimarães (Author) Other; Tiago Mendona (Author) Other; Pedro Neto (Author) Other; Paulo Gomes da Costa (Author) FEUP; António Paulo Moreira (Author) FEUP

Journal

Title: Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing

Vol. 67

Pages: 1-10

ISSN: 0736-5845

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 15 Citations

Scopus - 21 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00S-JX2

DOI: 10.1016/j.rcim.2020.102035

Abstract (EN): Robots are increasingly present in our lives, sharing the workspace and tasks with human co-workers. However, existing interfaces for human-robot interaction / cooperation (HRI/C) have limited levels of intuitiveness to use and safety is a major concern when humans and robots share the same workspace. Many times, this is due to the lack of a reliable estimation of the human pose in space which is the primary input to calculate the human-robot minimum distance (required for safety and collision avoidance) and HRI/C featuring machine learning algorithms classifying human behaviours / gestures. Each sensor type has its own characteristics resulting in problems such as occlusions (vision) and drift (inertial) when used in an isolated fashion. In this paper, it is proposed a combined system that merges the human tracking provided by a 3D vision sensor with the pose estimation provided by a set of inertial measurement units (IMUs) placed in human body limbs. The IMUs compensate the gaps in occluded areas to have tracking continuity. To mitigate the lingering effects of the IMU offset we propose a continuous online calculation of the offset value. Experimental tests were designed to simulate human motion in a human-robot collaborative environment where the robot moves away to avoid unexpected collisions with de human. Results indicate that our approach is able to capture the human's position, for example the forearm, with a precision in the millimetre range and robustness to occlusions.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 10