Distributed Formation and Motion Control in Multiple Mobile Manipulator Transportation: An Energy Optimization Design

This paper considers the problem of distributed cooperative control of multiple mobile manipulators to transport an object. A novel distributed energy optimization framework is proposed to design the distributed cooperative control. Energy optimization of manipulators and mobile platforms is used to construct the objective function. Distributed formation requirements of end-effectors and mobile platforms are treated as constraints. The practical physical constraints of angular velocity and linear velocity are written as constraint sets. The solution of the proposed optimization problem can control the multiple mobile manipulators to achieve the motion planning and cooperation goals. A convergent optimization algorithm is designed to solve the proposed optimization problem. The simulation validates the efficacy of the proposed optimization design and optimization algorithm.