Development of a Reconfigurable Holonomic Mobile Manipulation Cobot for Smart Factory 5.0

This paper presents the design, experimentation, and evaluation of a reconfigurable holonomic mobile cobot equipped with a Mecanum wheel base and a coupling locking mechanism to support versatile manipulation tasks in smart factory 5.0 environments. The system, designed for omnidirectional movement and dynamic adaptability, aims to enhance flexibility and precision in human-robot collaborative manufacturing. Through a series of experiments, we assessed the accuracy of the mobile base in loaded and unloaded conditions and evaluated the alignment and coupling success of the cobot with a detachable manipulator arm module. Results indicate that the Mecanum wheel base achieves an impressive 80% alignment success rate using ArUco marker tracking, demonstrating reliable mobility and tracking in dynamic environments. However, the coupling locking mechanism achieved only a 20% success rate, revealing limitations in the locking system's tolerance to minor misalignments. These findings highlight the cobot's strengths in adaptive navigation and tracking accuracy while underscoring the need for further development of the coupling mechanism for consistent operation. For future work, we will focuses on refining the coupling system, enhancing alignment feedback through additional visual markers, and optimizing control algorithms for load-bearing accuracy. This study provides a foundational step toward implementing reliable, reconfigurable robotic systems that meet the complex demands of next-generation manufacturing environments.