Hand guiding a virtual robot using a force sensor

The research behind this paper arose out of a need to use an open-source system that enables hand guiding of the robot effector using a force sensor. The paper deals with some existing solutions, including the solution based on the open-source framework Robot Operating System (ROS), in which the built-in motion planner MoveIt is used. The proposed concept of a hand-guiding system utilizes the output of the force–torque sensor mounted at the robot effector to obtain the desired motion, which is thereafter used for planning consequential motion trajectories. Some advantages and disadvantages of the built-in planner are discussed, and then the custom motion planning solution is proposed to overcome the identified drawbacks. Our planning algorithm uses polynomial interpolation and is suitable for continuous replanning of the consequential motion trajectories, which is necessary because the output from the sensor changes due to the hand action during robot motion. The resulting system is verified using a virtual robot in the ROS environment, which acts on the real Optoforce force–torque sensor HEX-70-CE-2000N. Furthermore, the workspace and the motion of the robot are restricted to a greater extent to achieve more realistic simulation.