To reach the objectives of physical Human-Robot Collaboration through a co-manipuation of object, I coordinate the following project. PHORACT project is for Physical Human-rObot InteRaction for objects co-manipulation in collaborative task based on Adaptive Compliance conTrol. In this project, we focus on physical human-robot collaboration through object co-manipulation tasks. Hence, we investigate several force-control robotics techniques, where the human is the leader of task through an external Cartesian applied force. In this project, we assess the effect of this robotics assistance on the efforts applied by human to manipulate object, by exploring different metrics. Our methods and strategies are validated using simulation with ROS and using a real collaborative robot Kuka LBR Iiwa.

Project funding: French ministry grant

In order to estimate dynamical parameters of collaborative robots and robots with flexible joints, I am involved in the following project. In this project, we focus on parametrical estimation methods capable of estimating the dynamic parameters involved in the dynamic models or robots. The main purpose concerns the collaborative robots that are with flexible joint and nonlinear. These methods will are based on the methods developed and validated on rigid manipulator arms, however, the joint flexibility and the consideration of the controllers in the whole identified system constitutes a real challenge to achieve in this project.

The deveopped parametrical estimation methods are applied and evaluated on different robots such as Adept-Omron Pionner LX mobile robot, Kuka LBR Iiwa collaborative robot arm and Kinova Jaco robotic arm.

Project funding: Occitanie region-ONERA aerospace French Lab.

To reach the objectives of human-robot co-existnce through a collision avoidance, I coordinated this project. 3D-ROCAD project is for 3D Image and robot's posture data for human-RObot Collision AvoiDance. In this project, we combined the 3D image camera sensor (MS Kinect) with the proporioceptive robot information to achieve a human-robot collision avoidance even when robot is hidden with respect to the camera. From the online estimation of the distance between robot end-effector and obstacle to avoid, a virtual repulsive force is applied on the robot as with the potential field principle. Results will ensure the safety of human who shares space and co-existe with a collaborative robot. These works were published in IROS'2021 and in RA-L journal.

Project funding: BRAFITEC (Brazil-France Technology) program (2019)

In order to investigate the feasibility of human model use in the robotics control strategy of collaboration, I invstigate this project. We aimed here to demonstrate that including some information about the physical characteristics of human in the robot control loop, will improve physical human-robot interaction in terms of human feeling. For that, the main explored use case is the robotic-based adaptive sport activity, where the human arm interact physically with 6-dof robot. In these works, the human is modeled as a spring-damper system, where the robot follows the human behavior, while adapting its stiffness according to the human one. This feasibility study have beed performed in simulation under MATLAB/Simulink environment.

Project funding: Toulouse Tech Inter Lab (TTIL) program, the University of Toulouse (2019)

To invesitgate the human musculoskeletal system understanding and rehabilitation in human injured subjects, I investigated these research activities. They are about human musculoskeletal modeling and control through Functional Electrical stimulation (FES) applied on muscles. We explored in this project the nonlinear control using the flatness properties of the musculoskeletal systems. In these works, we focused on knee joint activated by a quadriceps muscle, which is modeled with a highly physiological and complex model. A part of this work was published in MBEC journal.

Work funding: IDEX program of the University of Toulouse (2014)

In these research activities we focus on human body motion capture, measuring and analysis based on Inertial measurement Units (IMU). Therefore, two main use were explored. The first one concerns the use of the gyroscopes data (for orientation estimation) combined with the human multi-body model to estimate the human posture in a virtual reality environnement for an interactive simulation. The second use is about exploiting the accelerometers data and the walking context to estimate the absolute position of foot clearance. This work was published in Sensors (Basel).

Work funding: IDEX program of the University of Toulouse (2014)

In this project, we investigated the applicability and constraints of real time interaction between a 7-dof robot LBR IIWA (KUKA) and an external system such as a human in a physical collaboration. The project exploit Fast Robot Interface (FRI) tools.

In this project, we established a software and hardware framework which allows a realt time physical human-robot interaction. Also, the closed-loop time-delay is evaluated and statistically analyzed in terms of fastness and repeatability, which correspond to a hard real time standard.

Project funding: Toulouse Tech Inter Lab (TTIL) program, the University of Toulouse (2018)