Design of Collaborative, Cross & Carry Mobile RoBots "C³Bots"

Abstract

This paper presents an introduction aboutC3Botsproject which aims to design collaborative, cross and carry mobile robots. In this project it is considered to design an innovative robotic system based on modular entities with a simple mechanical architecture able to collaborate to ensure object co-manipulation and transport. The resulting multi-robot system is calledC3Bots. In this paper we present the first version of this system using a parallelogram mechanism for co-manipulation and the realized prototypes which are going to be used for first experiments.

Flexible co-manipulation and transportation with mobile multi-robot system

“…The main challenge addressed in this paper is to estimate the optimal robots' configuration around payload to achieve its comanipulation and the co-transportation while maximizing the stability of the resulting poly-robot (or p-bot) during the task (Hichri et al, 2014b). The p-bot stability is guaranteed, when the m-bots are positioned with respect to accessible area and RA, using the FCG criterion which ensures the payload stability during the co-manipulation phase, and the SSM criterion which ensures payload stability during the co-transportation phase.…”

“…As shortly introduced in the previous section, the paradigm of the C 3 Bots project consists of co-manipulating and cotransporting of a common payload through collaboration between several similar elementary m-bots. Each m-bot is built by connecting a manipulation mechanism on the top platform of a single-axle mobile base (Hichri et al, 2014b). The payload is supported on the edge of this transporting platform.…”

“…The platform can rotate freely with respect to a central vertical axis on the mobile base. This mobility allows each robot to rotate around itself while maintaining the payload static on its top (Hichri, 2015a). The resulting p-bot system [Figures 1(b) and (c)] is thus allowed to rotate around any point on the ground, located at the intersection of all the axle axes, and to translate along any direction.…”

“…Before starting the transport task, the m-bots have to achieve the co-manipulation process using the mechanism presented in the study by Hichri et al (2014b) and detailed in the study by Hichri et al (2015). Its role is to hold firmly the payload and to ensure FCG (Yoshikawa, 2010;Liu, 1999) to lift the object by applying a sufficient normal force f m,p,n [Figure 1(a)] which generates a vertical tangential lifting force f m,p,t [Figure 1(a)].…”

“…Step 2 helps in determining the minimum number of m-bots (m min ) that could be used to ensure the payload lifting and transport using the equations developed in the study by Hichri (2015a).…”