A Multi-Modal Control Method for a Collaborative Human-Robot Building Task in Off-Earth Habitat Construction

Space exploration is characterized by a limited amount of resources and tools. This particularly stands out in habitat construction, where heavy machinery like cranes are unavailable and manual work still plays a key role. To mitigate this, we propose a human-robot collaboration method for habitat construction tasks, which involve several key subtasks: grasping objects of various shapes, carrying them, and aligning them for assembly. The proposed method is based on an impedance controller and includes four modes of operation, that are tailored for specific sub-tasks. Each mode prescribes a robot stiffness behavior, needed for collaborative execution. The human operator can easily switch between the mode in realtime via a voice interface. To demonstrate the functionality of the proposed method in the construction task, we performed an experiment using KUKA LBR iiwa robot arm and qb robotics SoftHand robotic hand. These results indicate that the method offers a practical solution for human-robot collaborative construction tasks.