Development of a Three-Mobile-Robot System for Cooperative Transportation

Abstract

This study develops a three-mobile-robot system that cooperatively executes manipulations such as transporting, considering that transporting large-scale objects by carrying is practical in a narrow space but is a challenging application for mobile robots. To facilitate the manipulation of loading an object onto the robots, where the robots must maintain firm contact with the object and anchor at its location, this study designed an adaptable mechanism for the object-loading platform and a liftable brake to keep the robot still when necessary. Besides, each robot was designed to act as an omnidirectional wheel, so they can work as an omnidirectional block when collectively loading an object. The kinematic constraints of the object–robot system and forward kinematics of the robots' cooperative motion are proposed, and experiments are performed to validate the designed mechanisms and confirm that the robots can load an object and transport it cooperatively along the expected trajectory.