Safe Human-Machine Interaction

In the »Soft Collision« project, designer Anna Schäffner is investigating how robots and humans can interact safely. Difficulties between humans and machines, or even collisions involving them, can hardly be avoided – this is already established knowledge. Anna Schäffner is working on making these collisions safe – with a new design concept. Her work focuses on a flexible membrane that is positioned on the robot arm and can be activated by air.

The membrane uses its sensors to learn how the robot is moving or will move. It reacts to these impulses by inflating certain air chambers in order to gently prevent possible collisions. Through the membrane’s activity, the robot develops a kind of body language. In this way, a user interacting with the robot externally becomes aware of what kind of movement it will perform and can adjust more intuitively to the interaction.