Design of Collaborative Transportation System via Multiple Mobile Manipulators

This paper provides a new idea in research field of collaborative transportation using multiple mobile manipulators, where the force constraint problem, caused by force sensors in traditional control method, between robotic arm and moving objects is transformed into position constraint problem of position sensors in flexible grasping point that placed on lifting mechanism. And the lifting mechanism is grasped flexibility by each mobile manipulator by a robotic arm with six degree of freedom. The hardware designing processes of mobile manipulator and lifting mechanism is provided in details firstly. Then the designing of software, including monitoring configuration software in upper computer (MRCC) that running on the host PC and the lower computer software that running on core control board of each mobile manipulator, is given. Finally, the application of collaborative transportation system is described, which includes two different parts: verification in debugging mode and designment of control block in automatic mode, and the automatic mode is an open interface that it makes possible for researchers to design their own collaborative control law.