Accounting for respiratory motions in online mechanical impedance estimation

The aim of this work is to improve the safety and control robustness of robots interacting physically with humans by enhancing their contact perception. More specifically in the abdominal area, respiratory motions are clearly influencing the contact dynamics but have not yet been accounted for in the estimation of the contact impedance. We propose here a combined mechanical-respiratory model of impedance along with its on-line identification. Numerical and practical experiments with living subjects validate the identification process and show the relevance in accuracy of accounting for the respiratory beats.