Ergonomic Adaptation of Robotic Movements in Human-Robot Collaboration

Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs) are common occupational diseases. An interesting research question is whether collaborative robots actively can minimise the risk of MSDs during collaboration. In this work ergonomic adaptation of robotic movements during human-robot collaboration is explored in a first test case, namely, adjustment of work sureface height. Vision based markerless posture estimation is used as input in combination with ergonomic assessment methods to adapt robotic movements in order to facilitate better ergonomic conditions for the human worker.