Analysis of cooperative robot manipulators on a mobile platform

Abstract

This work presents the dynamic equations of motion for two or more cooperating manipulators on a freely moving mobile platform. The formulation includes the full dynamic interactions from arms-to-platform and arm-tip to arm-tip and the possible translation and rotation of the platform. The system of cooperating robot manipulators forms a closed kinematic chain where the forces of interaction are included in the simulation of robot and platform dynamics. The forces of interaction are outputs of the analysis giving force/torque sensor values at the tip of each manipulator. The equations of motion are shown to be identical in structure to the fixed-platform cooperative manipulator dynamics. The structure of the closed chain dynamics allows the use of any solution for the open topological tree of base and manipulator links where due to the large number of links linear recursive methods become more efficient.