Securing Industrial Operators with Collaborative Robots: Simulation and Experimental Validation for a Carpentry task

In this work, a robotic assistance strategy is developed to improve the safety in an artisanal task that involves a strong interaction between a machine-tool and an operator. Wood milling is chosen as a pilot task due to its importance in carpentry and its accidentogenic aspect. A physical model of the tooling process including a human is proposed and a simulator is thereafter developed to better understand situations that are dangerous for the craftsman. This simulator is validated with experiments on three subjects using an harmless mock-up. This validation shows the pertinence of the proposed control approach for the collaborative robot used to increase the safety of the task.