Safety Materials and Control of Human-Cooperative Robots

This paper discusses the design theory of a human-cooperative robot that has the capability of realizing both personal safety and cooperative work. The design parameters discussed in this paper include the safety materials, motion control, collision conditions, and safety standards that are necessary for realizing the symbiosis of robots with humans. To be concrete, the paper describes the modeling of shock-absorption materials, construction of an emergency stop system and a joint compliance control system, determination of collision simulation conditions, and the selection of a head injury standard equation. Next, the paper simulates collisions between a cooperatively working human and a robot by combining the parameters and straightens out the effects of various parameters regarding anticollision safety (presupposing collisions). Furthermore, the paper derives, based on experiments, a method of determining the parameters that are necessary for actually designing the system. Finally, the paper proposes safety guidelines and design points regarding human-cooperative robots by integrating the results of the above experiments and discussions.