Control a rigid caging formation for cooperative object transportation by multiple mobile robots

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of multi-robots object transportation by using the concept of Object Closure. In contrast to Form or Force Closure which is used in the research of grasping, Object Closure is a condition under which the object is trapped so that there is no feasible path for the object from the given position to any position that is beyond a specified threshold distance. Once Object Closure is achieved, the robots can cooperatively drag or flow the trapped object to the desired goal. In this paper, we address the concept CC-Closure Object and testing algorithms using properties of CC-Closure Object. Also the scaling and control problem of caging formation is addressed and two algorithms to realize two-effectors pushing on fixed caging formation control is proposed.