Towards an Assistive Mobile Manipulator

Service robotics is an area that has been receiving increased attention in the last years. However, there are very few service robots able to perform manipulation tasks in human environments, and even fewer which can perform more than one different action. Robots are usually programmed to perform a given, specialized task, and are unable to extend their capabilities to other domains. This chapter describes the first steps towards the long-term goal of building a multipurpose assistive mobile manipulator from the methods described in this book.