Decentralized Control of Multiple Mobile Robots Handling a Single Object in Coordination.

Abstract

We propose a decentralized control algorithm of multiple robots handling a single object in coordination, by which each robot is controlled by its own controller. The motion command of the object is given to one of the robots, and the other robots estimate the motion of the leader by themselves through the motion of the object and handle the object based on the estimated reference. The external force applied to the object, including the inertia force, is shared equally by all of the robots. The proposed control algorithm was experimentally applied to three mobile robots, each of which has one degree of freedom. The experimental results illustrated the validity of the proposed control system.