Motion control of multiple DR Helpers transporting a single object in cooperation with a human based on map information

Abstract

We propose a decentralized motion control algorithm of multiple mobile robots transporting a single object in cooperation with a human based on a path generated from an environment. Each mobile robot is controlled as if it had caster-like dynamics around a representative point attached to the object and its representative point moves along the path based on the intentional force applied by a human. The proposed decentralized control algorithm is experimentally applied to three omni-directional mobile robots referred to as DR Helper. Experimental results illustrate the validity of the proposed control algorithm.