Multi-variable virtual impedance control of a robot considering human emotions

When robots conduct several tasks transmitting forces to humans, robots must be controlled taking human emotions into consideration. In this paper, a multivariable impedance control of a robot considering human emotions especially when a human contacts with or lean on the robot is proposed. First, human characteristics of changing his/her softness in decreasing the movement of an object which contacts with human hand with certain force are analyzed experimentally. It is expected that the human characteristics can be expressed by the multivariable impedance models. Second, we try to realize a multivariable impedance control of a robot favorable for human emotions based on the approximated human characteristics using rating-scale method.