A wearable IMU system for flexible teleoperation of a collaborative industrial robot

Škulj, Gašper (author), Vrabič, Rok (author), Podržaj, Primož (author)

Increasing the accessibility of collaborative robotics requires interfaces that support intuitive teleoperation. One possibility for an intuitive interface is offered by wearable systems that measure the operatorʼs movement and use the information for robot control. Such wearable systems should preserve the operatorʼs movement capabilities and, thus, their ability to flexibly operate in the workspace. This paper presents a novel wireless wearable system that uses only inertial measurement units (IMUs) to determine the orientation of the operatorʼs upper body parts. An algorithm was developed to transform the measured orientations to movement commands for an industrial collaborative robot. The algorithm includes a calibration procedure, which aligns the coordinate systems of all IMUs, the operator, and the robot, and the transformation of the operatorʼs relative hand motions to the movement of the robot%s end effector, which takes into account the operatorʼs orientation relative to the robot. The developed system is demonstrated with an example of an industrial application in which a workpiece needs to be inserted into a fixture. The robotʼs motion is compared between the developed system and a standard robot controller. The results confirm that the developed system is intuitive, allows for flexible control, and is robust enough for use in industrial collaborative robotic applications.

• Language: English
• Keywords: wearable systems, teleoperation, industrial robots
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FS - Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: Str. 1-19
• Numbering: Vol. 21, iss. 17, art. 5871
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-130802
• UDC: 007.52(045)
• ISSN on article: 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s21175871
• COBISS.SI-ID: 76739587
• Publication date in RUL: 17.09.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sensors
• Shortened title: Sensors
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 1424-8220
• COBISS.SI-ID: 10176278

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 31.08.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: inercialne merilne enote, teleoperacija, industrijska robotika

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P2-0270
• Name: Proizvodni sistemi, laserske tehnologije in spajanje materialov