A Car Transportation System Using Multiple Coordinated Robots: iCART : 2nd Report, A Distributed Coordination Control Algorithm(Mechanical Systems)

Abstract

We proposed a novel car transportation system termed as iCART (intelligent Cooperative Autonomous Robot Transporters). This system transports cars using two mobile robots that move in coordination. In this paper, a leader-follower type decentralized motion control algorithm considering the effect of rolling friction at the contact of the end-effector with the ground is proposed. The consideration of the rolling friction effect is needed, because an end-effector of the robot is grounded for supporting weight of a car. The proposed algorithm was applied to the experimental system, and experiments were done. Experimental results illustrate the validity of the proposed algorithms.