MobileRobot: Control of a Redundant Kinematic using Drive-Steering Modules for Mobile Manipulation

Mobile manipulation has been a subject to research since the mid 1990s. By placing a manipulator (robot arm) onto a mobile robot platform, the working area of the manipulator can be extended almost indefinitely. In contrast to linear-axis, commonly used to extend the reach of a robot arm along one axis, mobile manipulation is usually implemented with a timely separated operation of the mobile platform and the manipulator. This way the mobile platform can move the manipulator to any point on the floor plane, where the manipulator then uses its normal reach to perform the manipulation task. In contrast, this paper introduces a mobile manipulator where an omni-directional platform, consisting of two drive-steering modules, and a 6-axis manipulator form one kinematic system or chain. By allowing the concurrent use of all axis, this enables large scale continuous manipulation task like performing welding operations exceeding the reach of commonly used manipulators.