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Safety Evaluation of Human Arm Operations Using IMU Sensors with a Spring-Damper-Mass Predictive Model

Robotics 2025-02-14 v1

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to real-time safety monitoring in human-robot collaborative manufacturing environments through a wrist-mounted Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) system integrated with a Predictive Safety Model (PSM). The proposed system extends previous PSM implementations through the adaptation of a spring-damper-mass model specifically optimized for wrist motions, employing probabilistic safety assessment through impedance-based computations. We analyze our proposed impedance-based safety approach with frequency domain methods, establishing quantitative safety thresholds through comprehensive comparative analysis. Experimental validation across three manufacturing tasks - tool manipulation, visual inspection, and pick-and-place operations. Results show robust performance across diverse manufacturing scenarios while maintaining computational efficiency through optimized parameter selection. This work establishes a foundation for future developments in adaptive risk assessment in real-time for human-robot collaborative manufacturing environments.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.09241,
  title  = {Safety Evaluation of Human Arm Operations Using IMU Sensors with a Spring-Damper-Mass Predictive Model},
  author = {Musab Zubair Inamdar and Seyed Amir Tafrishi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.09241},
  year   = {2025}
}