The use of pointed or edged tools or objects is one of the most challenging aspects of today's application of physical human-robot interaction (pHRI). One reason for this is that the severity of harm caused by such edged or pointed impactors is less well studied than for blunt impactors. Consequently, the standards specify well-reasoned force and pressure thresholds for blunt impactors and advise avoiding any edges and corners in contacts. Nevertheless, pointed or edged impactor geometries cannot be completely ruled out in real pHRI applications. For example, to allow edged or pointed tools such as screwdrivers near human operators, the knowledge of injury severity needs to be extended so that robot integrators can perform well-reasoned, time-efficient risk assessments. In this paper, we provide the initial datasets on injury prevention for the human hand based on drop tests with surrogates for the human hand, namely pig claws and chicken drumsticks. We then demonstrate the ease and efficiency of robot use using the dataset for contact on two examples. Finally, our experiments provide a set of injuries that may also be expected for human subjects under certain robot mass-velocity constellations in collisions. To extend this work, testing on human samples and a collaborative effort from research institutes worldwide is needed to create a comprehensive human injury avoidance database for any pHRI scenario and thus for safe pHRI applications including edged and pointed geometries.

翻译：有刃或有尖工具或物体的使用是当前物理人机交互（pHRI）应用中最具挑战性的方面之一。原因之一在于，相较于钝性冲击物，此类有刃或有尖冲击物造成的伤害严重程度研究尚不充分。因此，相关标准针对钝性冲击物明确规定了合理的力值与压力阈值，并建议在接触中避免一切棱角和尖端。然而，在真实的pHRI应用中，有刃或有尖冲击物几何形状无法完全排除。例如，为允许螺丝刀等有刃或有尖工具靠近操作员使用，必须扩展有关伤害严重程度的知识体系，以便机器人集成商能够开展合理且高效的风险评估。本文基于人体手部替代物（猪爪和鸡腿）的跌落测试，提供了初始的伤害预防数据集。随后，我们通过两个接触示例展示了利用该数据集进行机器人操作的便捷性与高效性。最后，我们的实验揭示了一系列在特定机器人质量-速度碰撞组合下可能发生在人体上的伤害类型。为拓展此项研究，未来需要进行人体样本测试，并联合全球研究机构共同协作，构建一个适用于所有pHRI场景的综合人体伤害规避数据库，从而推动包含有刃和有尖几何形状在内的安全pHRI应用。