Human-robot coordination during hand-over tasks in virtual reality

The first compared human and robot virtual partners, finding superior final end-effector control when interacting with human partners, especially for elevated elbow positions that emphasized joint kinematics. The second experiment analyzed robot velocity profiles—minimum jerk, constant velocity, constant acceleration, and biphasic. Results demonstrated strong benefits of minimum jerk trajectories, enhanced by early visual motion cues and a deceleration phase during movement. <br><br>The third study investigated the timing of rotational movements during robot translation, comparing early, synchronized, and late rotations.

Findings indicated that early or synchronized rotations enabled smoother handovers, while late rotations adversely affected coordination, emphasizing the importance of early visual orientation information. <br><br>Overall, the thesis findings indicate that differences in task dynamics and movement configurations have large effects on human-robot coordination throughout the entirety of the task, the potential applications and implications of these insights are discussed, with directions for future research in this area outlined.<br><br>