The Development of Robot Control via Virtual Reality for Safe Human-Robot Interaction

In the domain of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), the prime focus is laid on the safety of the involved humans. High inertias, velocities and large work envelop, especially of most of the currently used industrial robots, are reasons for the hazards associated with the interaction of humans with robots. Several strategies are being investigated for ensuring safety, that includes light-weight robots (LWR), force-limiting control, start-stop monitoring, speed limiting mode, etc. These approaches often require a range of hardware peripherals to be incorporated within and around the robotic system and/or complete replacement of the involved arrangement. Alternatively, the use of Virtual Reality systems to interact with, otherwise dangerous, robots allow for a contactless interaction. In this paper we present a Virtual Reality based arrangement permitting the interaction with the robot from distance, in a virtually created environment, ensuring human safety. Keeping in view the frequent requirements of changes in robot’s movement plan, the proposed scheme demonstrates the capability of programming these plans in the virtual environment as well. Moreover, this leads to remote/tele-control of the robot which is the future demand considering the social impact of COVID-19.