Affordable Modular Mobile Manipulator for Domestic Applications

Although there are some commercially available mobile manipulators, they are often very expensive, and can be used only in specific applications. A key contribution of this work is the development of a modular, reconfigurable, robust and low-cost autonomous mobile manipulator that can be used for a wide range of applications, including domestic applications in unknown and cluttered environment. This mobile manipulator is developed by a synergetic integration of vision, manipulation and navigation subsystems that can be independently used for various applications. The applicability of the developed mobile manipulator for carrying out a number of domestic tasks in various environments has been demonstrated.