An Obstacle Avoidance Approach Based on System Outlined Rectangle for Cooperative Transportation of Multiple Mobile Manipulators

摘要

Cooperative transportation by multiple mobile manipulators in unknown environments has been addressed in this paper. An obstacle avoidance approach based on system outlined rectangle (SOR) is proposed, which regards the cooperative transportation system as a virtual rectangle in the environment and focuses on the adjustment of moving direction. The width of system outlined rectangle can be adjusted via the pose changes of the mobile manipulators, which makes the decision making in obstacle avoidance more flexible and environmentally adaptable. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Moreover, comparisons between the experiments using the proposed approach and the experiments without considering the width changes of SOR indicates that the proposed approach is more time-saving and energy-economic.