A Gesture-Based Natural Human-Robot Interaction Interface With Unrestricted Force Feedback

This article presents a novel gesture-based natural human-robot interaction interface, which integrates a markerless gesture tracking system and an unrestricted electromagnetic force feedback mechanism. In this proposed interface, a markerless gesture tracking system is developed to relate the motion of the operator's hand to the robot manipulator so that the operator can naturally and friendly control the robot without any markers. More importantly, this interface uses a new unrestricted electromagnetic force feedback mechanism to avoid the friction, hysteresis, and other nonlinear influence in the conventional actuation dynamics. The interface makes the operator obtain the effective force immersion of the robot. Therefore, the proposed interface can provide the promising operation accuracy for the operator. To effectively regulate the electric currents of coils and provide accurate force feedback, the broad learning system (BLS) is introduced in this unrestricted electromagnetic force feedback mechanism. In addition, two interval Kalman filters (IKFs) are applied to estimate the position and orientation of the operator's hand, respectively, improving the measurement accuracy of the proposed interface. Experimental results show that the proposed interface is suitable for high-precision human-robot interactive tasks and enables the operator to focus on the tasks and operate dual robot manipulator, which provides natural and efficient human-robot interaction.