Previous notice method of robotic arm motion for suppressing threat to human

• Published in: Ningen kogaku. The Japanese journal of ergonomics Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 252 - 262
• Main Authors: IKEURA, Ryojun, MIZUTANI, Kazuki, KAWAKITA, Yohei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Japan Ergonomics Society 2001
• ISSN: 0549-4974; 1884-2844; 1884-2844
• DOI: 10.5100/jje.37.252

This paper describes the method for the previous announcement of robotic arm motions to reduce human's threat against the robot. The notice is performed by lighting several LED markers attached at the endpoint of the robot arm and the effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated as follows. The time when the LED markers turn on before the arm moves is investigated. In one trial of the experiment, the arm moves toward the subject with a noticed time. The trials are performed repeatedly and the velocity and the time are chosen randomly. After one trial, the subject marks his/her impressions of the threat against three items fear, surprise and disgust. From the results, it is observed that the marks of two items, fear and surprise are high when the noticed time is short, and those of disgust are high with the time of more than 2.5 seconds. Therefore, it is found an optimal time in which the marks of the all items are low and it is about 1 second. Next, the previous notice for the direction and the velocity of the endpoint of the robot arm is evaluated. These announcements are displayed by selecting the number and the color of lighting the LED markers. The experimental results show that the threat of the human ca n be controlled by giving the previous notice of the direction and the velocity of the robot arm. Moreover, these results are verified statistically.