Cooperative Transportation by Multiple Mobile Manipulators using Adaptive NN Control

It is a challenging task for multiple robots working together to realize object transportation. This paper studies a practical situation that a group of mobile manipulators are used to transport an object whose mass can not be ignored. From the viewpoint of formation, a leader-follower type control is designed. To overcome parameter uncertainty in modeling robot, a decentralized control law is applied to individual robots, in which an adaptive NN is used to model robot dynamics online. Using Lyapunov theory, we have proved that if all end-effectors of robots will keep proper relative distances with a regular formation to manipulate a heavy object, the object will be transported to the destination at last. But due to parameter uncertainties, there may exist a static position error, which can be reduced by proper selection of control coefficients.