Object transportation by a human and a mobile manipulator : a dynamical systems approach

摘要

In this paper we address the problem of humanrobot joint transportation of large payloads. The human brings to the task knowledge on the goal destination and global path planning. The robot has no prior knowledge of the environmentand must autonomously help the human, while simultaneouslyavoiding static and/or dynamic obstacles that it encounters. Forthis purpose a dynamic control architecture, formalized as acoupled system of non-linear differential equations, is designedto control the behavior of the mobile manipulator in close loopwith the acquired sensorial information. Verbal communicationis integrated that allows the robot to communicate its limitations.Results show the robot’s ability to generate stable, smooth androbust behavior in unstructured and dynamic environments.Furthermore, the robot is able to explain the difficulties itencounters and thus contribute to success of the task and toenhance the human-robot physical interaction.