Coordination of multi-robot and human systems in a perceptive reference frame

Abstract

This paper presents a framework and architecture for the coordination of human and robot formations based on a group of distributed mobile manipulators. The key for the human/robot formations sharing control is to create a common motion reference that can be understood by both the humans and the robots in the formation. First, the perceptive reference frame is introduced and the characteristics of the perceptive frame are compared with the timebased reference frame. Next, the stability of the system based on the perceptive reference frame is investigated. The applications of the perceptive reference frame to multi-robot coordination in a formation and human/mobile manipulator coordination are then discussed. Based on the perceptive reference frame, the human can be naturally integrated into the robot formation. Human intelligence can therefore be integrated with the mobility and dexterous manipulation capability of the mobile manipulators to undertake complex tasks. The robot formation is therefore able to reconfigure and thus cope with unexpected events. Experiments have been used to verify the theoretical results.