Gravity Center Control for Manipulator/Vehicle System for Man-Robot Cooperation

In this paper, we propose a "center of gravity control (CGC)" method to apply the manipulator/vehicle system, so that the system cannot fall down by controlling the center of gravity of the system. Different from the manipulator fixed on the floor/ground tightly, it is a very serious problem for the manipulator/vehicle system to avoid tumbling. Therefore, we consider the algorithm to control both the tip position of the endeffector and the center of gravity of the manipulator and the payload being carried by the manipulator. We applied this control algorithm to the manipulator with the vehicle for the man-robot cooperation. The trajectory of the manipulator is given by a human operator and the center of gravity is set so as not to tumble previously. We carried out the experiment to confirm the effectiveness of this control algorithm for the manipulator/vehicle system. In this experiment, we applied this control algorithm to a manipulator for the man-robot cooperation. This gravity center control algorithm can be applied to various types of manipulator/vehicle system.