Navigation of two wheeled mobile robots cooperatively carrying an object

Abstract

The paper presents a method that allows two wheeled, mobile robots to navigate through known environments while cooperatively carrying an object. In the navigation method, a leader robot and a follower robot cooperatively perform obstacle avoidance or they cooperatively transport an object to a desired destination. The two robots are controlled by a single PID Controller. Here, we propose a motion-planning method of two mobile robots for cooperative transportation of an object is proposed. Simulations and experiments verify the effectiveness of the approach for cooperative navigation of two robots. In this problem, two mobile robots have to carry and maintain a box over their body while moving to a desired position. The task assigned here is the cooperative overhead transportation of a box, in which two robots have to carry the box. Little movement error will result in mission failure. This task has various kinds of problems, such as obstacle avoidance and maintenance of stability. All of these problems cannot be solved at once. The controller used here is Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) Controller. The stabilization of two robots is the main challenge.