The HRC Model Set for Human-Robot Collaboration Research

Abstract: In this paper, we present a model set for designing human-robot collaboration (HRC) experiments. It targets a common scenario in HRC, which is the collaborative assembly of furniture, and it consists of a combination of standard components and custom designs. With this work, we aim at reducing the amount of work required to set up and reproduce HRC experiments, and we provide a unified framework to facilitate the comparison and integration of contributions to the field. The model set is designed to be modular, extendable, and easy to distribute. Importantly, it covers the majority of relevant research in HRC, and it allows tuning of a number of experimental variables that are particularly valuable to the field. Additionally, we provide a set of software libraries for perception, control and interaction, with the goal of encouraging other researchers to proactively contribute to our work.