MOTION COORDINATION AND REACTIVE CONTROL OF AUTONOMOUS MULTIMANIPULATOR SYSTEMS

The emerging field of service robots demands new systems with increase d flexibility. The flexibility of a robot system can be increased in m any different ways. Mobile manipulation-the coordinated use of manipul ation capabilities and mobility-is an approach to increase robots flex ibility with regard to their motion capabilities. Most mobile manipula tors that are currently under development use a single arm on a mobile platform. The use of a two-arm manipulator system allows increased ma nipulation capabilities, especially when large, heavy, or non-rigid ob jects must be manipulated. This article is concerned with motion contr ol for mobile two-arm systems. These systems require new schemes for m otion coordination and control. A coordination scheme called transpare nt coordination is presented that allows for an arbitrary number of ma nipulators on a mobile platform. Furthermore, a reactive control schem e is proposed to enable the platform to support sensor-guided manipula tor motion. Finally, this article introduces a collision avoidance sch eme for mobile two-arm robots. This scheme surveys the vehicle motion to avoid platform collisions and arm collisions caused by self-motion of the robot. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.