Haptic-Based Shared-Control Methods for a Dual-Arm System

We propose novel haptic guidance methods for a dual-arm telerobotic manipulation system, which are able to deal with several different constraints, such as collisions, joint limits, and singularities. We combine the haptic guidance with shared-control algorithms for autonomous orientation control and collision avoidance meant to further simplify the execution of grasping tasks. The stability of the overall system in various control modalities is presented and analyzed via passivity arguments. In addition, a human subject study is carried out to assess the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control approaches both in simulated and real scenarios. Results show that the proposed haptic-enabled shared-control methods significantly improve the performance of grasping tasks with respect to the use of classic teleoperation with neither haptic guidance nor shared control.