From Robotic Arms to Mobile Manipulation: on Coordinated Motion Schemes Author Manuscript, Published in "2nd International Innovative Production Machines and Systems Conference, Europe (2006)"

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses mobile manipulators. It identifies what kind of tasks can be defined in wheeled mobile manipulation and describes how to perform these tasks, that is, how the manipulation task and the environment constraints can be taken into account in the field of mobile manipulation. The chapter also discusses the need for coordination and the models underlying each strategy. The coordinated motion strategy is emphasized together with the models derived from the classic models of wheeled mobile platforms and robotic arms. It then proposes a generic formulation of global instantaneous kinematics for wheeled mobile manipulators, which is compared with the classical kinematic modeling of robotic arms. It highlights that many tools of classical manipulation can be re-used in this new framework. Finally, the chapter outlines simulation results, discusses experiments, and identifies the remaining industrial challenges.