<title>Cooperative control of multiple robots to manipulate objects</title>

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of using multiple robots together as a hand to reorient objects in the plane. A planner is described which generates a sequence of intermediate object motions and robot grasps, called a grasp gait, sufficient to achieve a final desired object orientation. These gaits are implemented using 3 phantom haptic interfaces, modified to act as robot fingers. The core control structure of the implementation is presented. Finger force and position errors, as well as object position errors, are discussed, and additional control algorithms are developed to correct for these errors. These gaits are demonstrated to be robust to small disturbances using the additional control algorithms.