Topic: Safe Human-Robot Symbiosis based on Variable Impedance Control of Articulated-Soft Robots

Lecturer: Dr Emmanouil Spyrakos-Papastavridis, Lecturer (Assistant Professor) of King’s College London

Time: 14:30-15:30, Tuesday, March 19, 2024, UTC+8

Venue: Meeting Room 308 of School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Yujiatou Campus

Abstract: Due to the ever-increasing demand for safe coexistence of humans and robots, within human-inhabited environments, the topic of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) has gained considerable popularity. Traditional, industrial manipulators offer exceptional positioning accuracy and repeatability, although their highly rigid structures render them unsafe for interaction with humans; moreover, these “rigid” robots are inadaptable and typically only capable of executing a limited number of tasks. To this end, it is possible to endow robotic structures with both physical elasticity and (real-time) reconfigurability to render them inherently safer during physical interaction, as well as increase their versatility, thereby paving the way for an entirely new realm of applications. However, the incorporation of passive elasticity introduces underactuated states, thereby exacerbating the position control problem and increasing the complexity of the concomitant algorithms. An indirect force control technique, known as variable impedance control (VIC), has exhibited strong potential in terms of combining safety during interaction with increased position control accuracy. On the downside though, VIC can induce unstable states during certain operational phases, and this may jeopardise safety – this issue is circumvented through usage of Power-Shaping-signal Control (PSC), which will be delineated in this talk. An array of pHRI experiments involving ASRs will also be presented to showcase the efficacy of the PSC approach. The talk will conclude with a discussion on the boundless potential of real-time reconfigurable, articulated-soft robots and the accompanying control-related challenges that need to be overcome to bring them to fruition.

Biography: Emmanouil Spyrakos-Papastavridis received the B.Sc. degree in electronic and electrical engineering from University College London (UCL), London, U.K. in 2008, the M.Sc. degree in mechatronics from King’s College London (KCL), London, U.K. in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in humanoid robotics from Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genoa, Italy in 2014. He was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Department of Advanced Robotics, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, a Senior Robotics Researcher with Q-Bot Ltd., a visiting researcher at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, and a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Department of Engineering, King’s College London. He is currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in robotics at the Centre for Robotics Research, Department of Engineering, King’s College London. His research interests include articulated-soft robots, nonlinear control, optimal control, humanoids, bipedal balancing, legged systems, impedance control, and human-robot interaction. He was a finalist for the Best Interactive Paper Award at Humanoids 2015, and was Principal Investigator of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) REST project.

Edited by: Li Tiantian

Source: School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Yujiatou Campus