Control of Nonholonomic mobile Manipulators for Cooperative Object Transportation

Abstract

in this paper a methodology for transporting objects with a group of wheeled nonholonomic mobile manipulators is presented. Full dynamic model of a mobile manipulator with a three wheeled mobile base and a three DOF manipulator is derived using Gibbs-Appell method. Since the dynamical equations of mobile robot are highly nonlinear, Input-output linearization technique is used to control individual robots. Transporting the object is divided into two steps.First, robots use a decentralized behavior-based method to approach and surround the object. Thenvirtual structure method is used to control the robots to transport the object cooperatively. A numerical simulation studyis preformed to show the effectiveness of the control methodology. The results show that group of robots are capable of approaching and grasping unknown shapes and they can also manipulate objects in various manners.