On the design and control of an empowering manipulator to increase the capabilities of humans in industrial applications

Empowering robotic solutions are exploited for industrial applications in order to reduce/limit risk factors related to musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and to improve the capabilities of humans. This paper aims at proposing both (a) the design and (b) the control of a cooperative manipulator in order to empower humans in onerous industrial tasks execution. (a) a dual driven actuation (DDA) is proposed and described for the shoulder joint of an empowering robotic system. (b) a fuzzy impedance control based approach to assist the human operator while lifting (partially) unknown weight components is proposed. The control method has been validated in a hatrack-like component installation, case-study related to the H2020 CleanSky 2 EURECA project. The proposed application has been shown during the KUKA Innovation Award. As a test platform, a KUKA iiwa 14 R820 has been used.