Talk title:
physical Human-Robot Collaboration: smart materials based mechatronics for the robot and more consideration of the human as a system

ABSTRACT of the TALK
Human-robot interaction and collaboration constitute a promising and challenging field of robotics research. Human-Robot interaction can be just a space sharing by avoiding collision, or a collision handling by appropriately controlling the robot reaction, or a more complex and collaborative task made by both. In this context, the physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) is one of the most challenging in terms of human safety, efficiency and comfort for human. These aspects are crucial for the human to increase the acceptability of the interaction and of the collaboration with robots in different domains (medical, rehabilitation, industrial, domestic and so on).

One of these complex tasks can be a co-manipulation (between human and robot) of heavy, bulky or flexible or deformable object which can be a product, a tool or another human. This requires an appropriate robot with possibly additional mechatronic system on it, and performant control strategies that account for the interaction forces.

On the other hand, an efficient human-robot interaction requires, beyond the robotic system, the knowledge, estimation and prediction of the human system. Indeed, to consider a certain number of issues related to the interaction stability, safety and human ergonomics and comfort, the human should be considered more deeply as system than just an external perturbation force.

This talk will address different aspects and issues of physical human-robot interaction and collaboration for object co-manipulation by focusing on mechatronics for the robot by using smart materials and on robotic control that considers the human-object-robot interaction as a whole system, which can be entirely modeled, measured and partially or completely controlled.

A particular focus will be made on the compliant control techniques such as impedance and admittance-based control. In our approaches, we assume the human as the leader of the interaction, where the robot trajectory is not predefined and the knowledge and prediction of human system behavior still remain important issues. Other aspects such as interaction stability and the interaction and collaboration assessment will be addressed as well.

BIO
Dr Mourad BENOUSSAAD is an associate professor at INP Toulouse, ENIT (Ecole Nationale d'Ingénieur de Tarbes) and LGP Lab (Laboratoire Génie de Production). Born in 1979, he prepared a PhD at LIRMM Lab (INRIA-UM2-CNRS) and he received a PhD in Robotics and Control Theory from Science University of Montpellier (France) in 2009.

He was a postdoc researcher at The University of Tokyo (JSPS-Japan) in 2010-2011 and then a postdoc researcher at Heidelberg University (Germany) during 2012-2013. In 2013-2014, Dr. M. Benoussaad joined LIRMM Lab (INRIA-UM2-CNRS) as a researcher in Robotics Lab. During his research, he worked mainly on robotics, biomechanics and human motion and optimization techniques.

In 2014 he joined INP-ENIT and Laboratoire Génie de Production (LGP) as an associate professor. Dr Benoussaad is a member of the "Dynamic Decision and Interoperability for Systems" team and particularly the "Robotics, Virtual Reality and Vision" (R2V2) group. His actual research mainly focuses on Physical Human-Robot Interaction (pHRI) in context of collaborative robotics (cobotics) and active exoskeleton. He also works on human motion and control of human musculoskeletal system. Dr Benoussaad is author and co-author of more than 13 papers in international journals and conferences in Robotics and rehabilitation engineering.

Dr Micky Rakotondrabe is full professor at the National School of Engineering in Tarbes (ENIT), a campus in Tarbes city (France) of the Toulouse National Politechnic Institute (INPT) of the University of Toulouse. His research affiliation is the Laboratoire Génie de Production. Prior to this position, he has been an Assistant Professor from 2006 to 2007 and then Associate Professor from 2007 to 2019 at the Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, with research affiliation at FEMTO-ST research Institute, in Besançon city (France).

Prof. Rakotondrabe is an active member of the IEEE/RAS Technical Committee (TC) on Micro/Nano Robotics and Automation and of the IFAC TC.4.2 on Mechatronics. He serves as Vice-Chair for the working group "Micro/Nano, Smart Materials/Structures" at the the IFAC TC.4.2 on Mechatronics.

He received several recognition prizes. In 2016, he was a recipient of the Big-On-Small Award during the IEEE MARSS International Conference. This award is to recognize a young professional (<40yo) with excellent performance and international visibility in the topics of mechatronics and automation for manipulation at small scales. From 2018, he is nominee for Distinguished Lecturer of Micro/Nano Robotics & Automation at the IEEE/RAS Society. He is or was an Associate Editor or a Guest Editor in prestigious journals related to Robotics, Automation and Mechatronics (IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE Transactions on Electronics, IFAC Mechatronics, MDPI Actuators).

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