Abstract
We consider cooperative manipulation by multiple robots assisting a leader, when information about the manipulation task, environment, and team of helpers is unavailable, and without the use of explicit communication. The shared object being manipulated serves as a physical channel for coordination, with robots sensing forces associated with its movement. Robots minimize force conflicts, which are unavoidable under these restrictions, by inferring an intended context: decomposing the object’s motion into a task space of allowed motion and a null space in which perturbations are rejected. The leader can signal a change in context by applying a sustained strong force in an intended new direction. We present a controller, prove its stability, and demonstrate its utility through experiments with (a) an in-lab force-sensitive robot assisting a human operator and (b) a multi-robot collective in simulation.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by a Space Technology Research Institutes grant (number 80NSSC19K1076) from NASA’s Space Technology Research Grants Program.
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Carey, N.E., Werfel, J. (2024). A Force-Mediated Controller for Cooperative Object Manipulation with Independent Autonomous Robots. In: Bourgeois, J., et al. Distributed Autonomous Robotic Systems. DARS 2022. Springer Proceedings in Advanced Robotics, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51497-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51497-5_11
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