2026-10-08T23:49:27Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/32640660 2026-10-01T16:29:17Z portal_1172 item_type_8 month_year_10_2026

Human-robot coordination during hand-over tasks in virtual reality Róisín Rita Keenan (24169425) PUREID: 626179040 perception and action human-robot collaboration movement coordination virtual reality Recent advancements in robotics have increased the integration of robotic systems into workplaces, necessitating effective human-robot collaboration. This thesis investigates human-robot coordination during handover tasks using Virtual Reality (VR) to analyze motor control and task dynamics across robot movement configurations. A behavioral study compared a repetitive pick-and-place task performed in physical and VR environments, establishing baseline differences. Results highlighted altered motor coordination timing and increased reliance on visual feedback in VR. Using a VR-based robot handover simulation, three studies explored human-robot interactions. The first study examined control modes and synchrony, showing improved pickup efficiency when robots initiated task onset. Minimum jerk trajectories facilitated smoother interactions, particularly when visual trajectory cues were available before participants’ forward motion. The second study focused on integrating biological motion into robot kinematics through two experiments. The first compared human and robot virtual partners, finding superior final end-effector control when interacting with human partners, especially for elevated elbow positions that emphasized joint kinematics. The second experiment analyzed robot velocity profiles—minimum jerk, constant velocity, constant acceleration, and biphasic. Results demonstrated strong benefits of minimum jerk trajectories, enhanced by early visual motion cues and a deceleration phase during movement. The third study investigated the timing of rotational movements during robot translation, comparing early, synchronized, and late rotations. Findings indicated that early or synchronized rotations enabled smoother handovers, while late rotations adversely affected coordination, emphasizing the importance of early visual orientation information. Overall, the thesis findings indicate that differences in task dynamics and movement configurations have large effects on human-robot coordination throughout the entirety of the task, the potential applications and implications of these insights are discussed, with directions for future research in this area outlined. 2026-10-01T16:29:17Z Text Thesis 10.17034/32640660.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Human-robot_coordination_during_hand-over_tasks_in_virtual_reality/32640660 All Rights Reserved