Walker's motion based control of two-wheel mobile manipulator

Human-friendly robots are garnering attention for the next generation for assist human motion in the field of nursing care, home care, soothing care and so on. However, the cooperative motion between humans and robots using mobile robots has not yet been researched very much. To address this problem, this paper presents the application of motion control method for safe navigation based on human's behavior using two-wheel mobile manipulator, because it has better mobility and it can pinwheel. In this study, human's behavior is divided into phases and virtual impedance is changed depending on if cooperative walking situation is dangerous or not. To verify the validity of proposed method, experiments of human-robot cooperative motion were carried out. By experimental results, the effect of proposed approach is made definite and safe walking support is realized.