Dissipative Control for Physical Human–Robot Interaction

Physical human-robot interaction is fundamental to exploiting the capabilities of robots in tasks and environments where robots have limited cognition or comprehension and is virtually ubiquitous for robotic manipulation in highly unstructured environments, as are found in surgery. A critical aspect of physical human-robot interaction in these cases is controlling the robot so that the individual human and robot competencies are maximized, while guaranteeing user, task, and environment safety. Dissipative control precludes dangerous forcing of a shared tool by the robot, ensuring safety; however, it typically suffers from poor control fidelity, resulting in reduced task accuracy. In this study, a novel, rigorously formalized, n-dimensional dissipative control strategy is proposed that employs a new technique called “energy redirection” to generate control forces with increased fidelity while remaining dissipative and safe. Experimental validation of the method, for complete pose control, shows that it achieves a 90% reduction in task error compared with the current state of the art in dissipative control for the tested applications. The findings clearly demonstrate that the method significantly increases the fidelity and efficacy of dissipative control during physical human-robot interaction. This advancement expands the number of tasks and environments into which safe physical human-robot interaction can be employed effectively.