Dynamic pushing strategies for dynamically stable mobile manipulators

Abstract

This paper presents three effective manipulation strategies for wheeled, dynamically balancing robots with articulated links. By comparing these strategies through analysis, simulation and robot experiments, we show that contact placement and body posture have a significant impact on the robot's ability to accelerate and displace environment objects. Given object geometry and friction parameters we determine the most effective methods for utilizing wheel torque to perform non-prehensile manipulation.