Cooperative Work among Humans and Robots in Remote Robot Systems with Force Feedback: Comparison between Human-Robot and Robot-Robot Cases

In this paper, we compare the efficiency of cooperative work between a human and a robot (i.e., human-robot) and that between two robots (robot-robot) in remote robot systems with force feedback by experiment. In each system, a user can operate a robot arm having a force sensor by using a haptic interface device while watching video. An electric hand is attached to the robot arm to hold an object. In the robot-robot case, we also make a comparison of the efficiency between the case where the position follow-up control previously proposed by us is carried out and the case where the control is not performed. In our experiment, a human or one robot arm hand-delivers an object to the other moving robot arm. Experiment results illustrate that the efficiency of the hand delivery of the object can be improved under the position follow-up control; however, the force applied to the object is somewhat larger than that in the human-robot case.