Analysis of autonomous cooperative assembly using coordination schemes by heterogeneous robots using a control basis approach

Abstract

Robotic technology is quickly evolving allowing robots to perform more complex tasks in less structured environments with more flexibility and autonomy. Heterogeneous multi-robot teams are more common as the specialized abilities of individual robots are used in concert to achieve tasks more effectively and efficiently. An important area of research is the use of robot teams to perform modular assemblies. To this end, this paper analyzed the relative performance of two robots with different morphologies and attributes in performing an assembly task autonomously under different coordination schemes using force sensing through a control basis approach. A rigid, point-to-point manipulator and a dual-armed pneumatically actuated humanoid robot performed the assembly of parts under a traditional "push-hold" coordination scheme and a humanmimicked "push-push" scheme. The study revealed that the scheme with higher level of cooperation-the "push-push" scheme-performed assemblies faster and more reliably, lowering the likelihood of stiction phenomena, jamming, and wedging. The study also revealed that in "push-hold" schemes industrial robots are better pushers and compliant robots are better holders. The results of our study affirm the use of heterogeneous robots to perform hard-to-do asElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

Multi-Robot Assembly Strategies and Metrics

“…Another study of multi-robot assembly was conducted by Rojas and II (2012). The authors used two heterogeneous robots, one of which was an industrial manipulator and the other an anthropomorphic, dual-armed robot.…”

Distributed controller–estimator for target tracking of networked robotic systems under sampled interaction

“…Remark 9 Comparing with the model-based adaptive algorithms of NRSs [1,2,10,11], the presented DCEA use model-free PD-like control, which means the algorithms are easily realizable due to their low computation complexity, including less requirement of the information of system models, lower cost for real-time input computing.…”

“…Numerous real-world applications have required a group of interconnected robots (networked robotic system, NRS) to accomplish one or several global tasks cooperatively, for instance, assembly of heterogeneous robots, trajectory tracking of networked mobile robots, operation of multi-fingered hands, management of intelligent highways [1][2][3][4][5]. Distributed algorithms have been widely invoked in these applications due to their advantages, including strong robustness, low consumptions and high efficiency [6,7].…”

Multi-scale assembly with robot teams

“…Komendera et al (2014) investigate approaches to roboticized tools which can be used to achieve precise assembly of truss structures. Rojas and Peters (2012) develop different controllers for assembly operations and analysed their relative performances. Hamner et al (2010) build a mobile manipulator for assembly tasks.…”