Intelligent Behaviour Modelling and Control for Mobile Manipulators

In the last several years, mobile manipulators have been increasingly utilized and developed from a theoretical viewpoint as well as for practical applications in space, underwater, construction and service environments. The work presented in this chapter deals with the problem of intelligent behaviour modelling and control of a mobile manipulator for the purpose of simultaneously following desired end-effector and platform trajectories. Our mobile manipulator comprised a manipulator arm mounted on a motorized mobile base wheelchair. The need for accurate modelling of the mobile manipulator is crucial in designing and controlling the motion of the robot to achieve the target precision and manipulability requirements. In this chapter, we propose a new method for measuring the manipulability index used for serial manipulators. Furthermore, we provide some simulations that are implemented on different serial manipulators, such as the Puma 560 manipulator, a six degrees of freedom (DOF) manipulator and the Mitsubishi Movemaster manipulator. We then extend the manipulability concept commonly used for serial manipulators to general mobile manipulator systems.