PATH PLANNING AND CONTROL OF A COOPERATIVE 3-ROBOT SYSTEM MANIPULATING LARGE OBJECTS

After a brief review of the current research on multi-robot systems, t he paper presents a path planning and control scheme for a cooperative three-robot system transferring/manipulating a large object from an i nitial to a desired final position/orientation. The robots are assumed to be capable of holding the object at three points that define an is osceles triangle. The mode of operation adopted is that of a ''master- and-two-slave robots''. The control scheme employs the differential di splacement of the object which is transformed into that of the end-eff ector of each robotic arm, and then used to compute the differential d isplacements of the joints of the robots. The scheme was applied to se veral 3-robot systems by simulation and proved to be adequately effect ive, subject to certain conditions regarding the magnitude of the diff erential displacements. Here, an example is included which concerns th e case of three Staubli RX-90L robots.