Branched AND/OR graphs: Toward flexible and adaptable human-robot collaboration

In this work, we present a framework for human-robot collaboration allowing the human operator to alter the robot plan execution online. To achieve this goal, we introduce Branched AND/OR graphs, an extension to AND/OR graphs, to manage flexible and adaptable human-robot collaboration. In our study, the operator can alter the plan execution using two implementations of Branched AND/OR graphs for learning by demonstration, using kinesthetic teaching, and task repetition. Finally, we demonstrated the effectiveness of our framework in a defect spotting scenario where the operator supervises robot operations and modifies online the plan when necessary.