Planning method for cooperative manipulation by multiple mobile robots using tools with motion errors

In this paper, we propose a method of an object manipulation by multiple mobile robots using sticks as tools. In the conventional cooperative work by multiple mobile robots, manipulation technique based on force-control has been proposed. However, mobile robots are moving by position-control, and motion errors can easily arise. Then, we build the manipulation technique, which is suitable for mobile robots by position-control. We propose the manipulation method without using sensor information, and consider the motion errors of mobile robots and the indefinite element of environment from the planning stage. We compute the conditions in which the object gets unstable during manipulation, and generate the motion of each mobile robot with these analyses. We verify the effectiveness of our proposed motion planning method through simulations and experiments.