Physical human interaction for an inflatable manipulator

There is a growing need for robots that can function in close proximity to human beings and also physically interact with them safely. We believe inherent safety is extremely important for robots in human environments. Towards this end, we are exploring the use of inflatable structures for manipulators instead of traditional rigid structures, to improve safety in physical human robot interaction (pHRI). This paper develops a contact detection and reaction scheme for an inflatable manipulator prototype. The resulting scheme is used for physical interaction tasks with humans. Experiments verifying the efficacy of the contact detection scheme are shown using two interaction scenarios.