A preliminary study for realization of field impedance equalizer with an automatic adjusting function

One of the authors has developed a framework of "field impedance equalizer (FIE)\´\´ for a human-robot cooperative system, which allows an operator to adjust desired mechanical impedance of a robot based on subjective feeling of operation. However, a method to automatically adjust the desired mechanical impedance has not been established yet, and the adjustment has been performed manually and rather empirically by another person (as an adjuster) in the previous study. This work reports a preliminary study for realization of a function which enables FIE to automatically adjust the desired mechanical impedance. Especially, a function to automatically adjust the desired viscous coefficient is developed based on the framework of reinforcement learning. It is experimentally demonstrated that the proposed function is capable of automatically developing the desired viscous coefficient which meets the desire of an operator.