Adaptive collision sensitivity framework for efficient and safe human-robot collaboration

The authors propose an adaptive collision sensitivity framework that dynamically estimates collision force based on the effective mass (EM) of each robot link and uses it to decide whether to interrupt motion, instead of applying a fixed contact threshold to the whole robot. Experiments were conducted on a real UR10e robot with AIRSKIN sensitive skin and in simulation, supplemented by simulated experiments on a KUKA LBR iiwa using joint torque sensing. In a mock pick-and-place scenario including both transient and quasi-static collisions, production efficiency improved by more than 45% compared with the standard method.