Collaborative Robot Assistant for the Ergonomic Manipulation of Cumbersome Objects

Collaborative robotics refers to the cooperation between humans and machines and aims at improving productivity and at facilitating the worker in demanding tasks. The advantage of collaboration is to combine the superior cognitive and motor skills of the operator with the physical capabilities of the robots. This work presents a control strategy for the robotic manipulator to minimise the muscular fatigue of the human operator during the manipulation of bulky objects. The robot moves the workpiece so that the human is always operating close to his/her most natural and ergonomic posture. This way the risk of developing postures and movements inducing musculoskeletal disorders is minimised. A substantial reduction of the amplitude of the operator movements, without degrading the precision in fulfilling the task, has been registered in the experimental campaign.