Using Wearables for Interaction with Robotic Co-Workers

Today, the integration of robotic arms in existing processes is a time consuming, complex and expensive task. This also applies for the adjustment of the behavior of robotic arms with changing production procecces. Especially for small and medium size companies with lower production quantities and more frequent changes in the production process, this is not feasible. Even more complex is the design of robotic behavior in human co-working scenarios. Designing repetitive tasks, that are executed regardless of the personal properties and requirements of the human co-worker is leading to poor acceptance.

In this project we use wearable devices (smart clothing) to track human body motions and let industrial robot arm mimic them. In this way automation an co-working task are designes in a fast, efficient manner. Our main objective is to improve the implementation and execution of control solutions for robotic arms in co-working scenarios.

More concrete, we want to:
- Enable easy, fast, inexpensive and reliable teaching of tasks of robotic arms at the production site for co-working scenarios
- Enable personalized control of the robotic arm, depending of the properties of the co-worker
- Enable runtime adaptation of the control software based on dynamic environmental properties (e.g., concrete position of the co-worker)