Towards teaching from demonstration
in industrial collaborative
environments
Skill transfer
EPFL
Robots that learn from
humans ...
... and share their
workspace
with humans
Collaborative manufacturing
ABB
Jose R. Medina and Aude Billard
Learning robust compliant controllers for
position-based tasks …
Goal: efficient but also
compliant controller
Continuously
react and replan
Impedance
control
Continuous
human disturbances
+
Autonomous stable
dynamical systems
K. Kronander and A. Billard, Passive Interaction Control
with Dynamical Systems, IEEE Robotics and
Automation Letters, 2016
Towards teaching from demonstration in industrial collaborative
environments
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… and position/force tasks
Continuously
react and replan
Continuous
human disturbances
Hybrid pos/force
control
Autonomous stable
dynamical systems
Learn desired
contact force
Robot
Position controlled direction
Force controlled direction
A.L. Pais, U. Keisuke Umezawa, Y. Nakamura and A. Billard. Task
Parametrization Using Continuous Constraints Extracted from
Human Demonstrations. IEEE TRO, 2015
Towards teaching from demonstration in industrial collaborative
environments
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Open issues
We can teach relatively complex tasks with expert teachers
but…
 … being a teacher is difficult!
 How to segment complex tasks for the robot as a teacher?
 How to demonstrate complex motions? Which interface?
 What is the simplest teaching interface?
Many repetitions/iterations!
Continuously react,
replan and learn
Continuous
human feedback
Continuous teaching
(minimal interface: no
teaching/reproduction phases)
 How should the robot assimilate human feedback? Is it always
perfect? Can we measure its quality?
Towards teaching from demonstration in industrial collaborative
environments
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