Human interaction with a service robot: mobile-manipulator handing over an object to a human

The interaction of a human and a service robot through the hand-over task is studied in this paper. Control issues are addressed for a service mobile-manipulator delivering and handing over objects to a human. The Contention Architecture controller is designed and implemented allowing for such task to be accomplished in a safe manner, as it requires coexistence and close interaction of the robot and the human. Experimental results of a realistic computer simulation are presented where a 75 kilogram human receives an object from a mobile manipulator with three degrees of freedom. The robot is capable of handing over the object to human, and compensating for unexpected movements of the human through its arm motion and base movement.