Approach to collision detection and recovery motion in industrial robot

The authors describe a method of collision detection and the following continued avoidance motion. In an industrial robot, if there is an unknown obstacle on the trajectory, it is required to detect the collision against the obstacle and to avoid it autonomously. In the proposed method, an extra sensor such as the tactile sensor or the visual sensor for detecting the collision is not necessary. Instead of these sensors, the collision is detected by the signal of the disturbance observer. The algorithm for how the robot knows the collision is coming and avoids the obstacle is shown. This algorithm is simple and easy to apply to the robot controller. Several experimental results are shown.