Cooperative Manipulation by Autonomous Intelligent Robots

Cooperative manipulation by autonomous intelligent robots promises fertile potential for improving the ability of robotic manipulation and expanding the domain where robots may be used. This paper focuses on the method for calculating the optimal force of each robot based on local sensor feedback and high-level communication. First, we propose adaptive force direction control, which is useful for monitoring the state of force equilibrium, and then describe the theoretical background of this control method. Second, we describe the strategy to find the proper force using our proposed control method. We also describe a control system architecture which is suitable for these operations. In this control system, each manipulator motion function, each sensor function, and each message-passing operation are programmed as primitive tasks which run in parallel. Third, we illustrate the usefulness of our proposed method with some experiments such as tumbling operation by two autonomous robots.