A Control Barrier Function Approach for Maximizing Performance while Fulfilling to ISO/TS 15066 Regulations

ISO/TS 15066 is globally recognized as the guideline for designing safe collaborative robotic cells, where human and robot collaborate in order to fulfill a common job. Current approaches for implementing the ISO/TS 15066 guidelines lead to a conservative behavior (e.g. low velocity) of the robot and, consequently, to poor performance of the collaborative cell. In this letter, we propose an approach based on control barrier functions that allows to maximize the performance of a robot acting in a collaborative cell while satisfying the ISO/TS 15066 regulations. The proposed approach has been successfully validated both in simulation and through experiments.