f İ-R e 2019: My colleagues and I organized a very fruitful workshop on Physical Human-Robot Interaction and Its Applications as part of ToRK2019.

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As part of ToRK 2019, a local conference on Robotics Science in Turkey, my colleagues, Dr. Ozan Tokatli, Prof. Volkan Patoglu, Prof. Cagatay Basdogan, and I organized a workshop on Physical Human-Robot Interaction and Its Applications. Within the scope of the workshop, we brought together researchers working on the design and application of devices and controllers in the field of human-robot interaction and increased the interaction between the researches conducted in this field in Turkey.

Many people attended our workshop.

Prof. Basdogan gave a very inspiring and motivating introduction to our workshop.
Dr. Tokatli provided a general overview of interaction controllers.
I gave a talk on optimal design of interaction controllers for pHRI.
Prof. Patoglu gave a very informative talk on challenges and points in using impedance controllers for robot-assisted rehabilitation systems.
The audience was very interested in the workshop.
Prof. Sendur introduced the series elastic actuation mechanism of their recently developed lower-body exoskeleton.
Prof. Samur talked about the promising advantages of the soft robotics system developed for colonoscopy by his team.
Prof. Dede gave a very comprehensive talk on mechanical approaches to solving the problems in establishing physical interaction with medical robots.
Important aspects of pHRI were brought to the attention of the audience during the panel discussion moderated by Dr. Tokatli and me.
The technology readiness level of some pHRI systems was also discussed during the panel discussion. Prof. Samur highlighted some drawbacks of existing medical devices whereas Prof. Patoglu mentioned that rehabilitation robots are about to reach the level of 9.

For the abstracts of the talks and the contact information of the speakers, please visit the web-site of the workshop.