Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

A mobile manipulator is a system comprised of a robot arm (or manipulator) mounted on a mobile base. Examples of such systems include robot arms mounted on Remotely-Operated Vehicles (ROVs) or remotely operated mining equipment. Such systems offer great advantages in terms of workspace and manipulability compared to fix-mounted robot arms. However, such systems are more difficult to control due to the inherit redundancy of these systems. To position and orient an object in space requires 6-DOF (degrees-of-freedom). Typical mobile manipulators have more than 6-DOF making the control of these systems a challenge. Traditionally, the robot arm and base are controlled independently. This is the easiest form of control to implement, but can be challenging for an operator to use, especially when performing complex tasks since such a method is very non-intuitive. An opportunity exists to develop new control algorithms that allow mobile manipulators to be controlled in a unified and intuitive manner. Thus, the goal of this work is to develop novel algorithms that achieve the unified control of mobile manipulators and allow operators to control such systems in an easy to use, operator friendly manner. New control algorithms will be developed that exploit knowledge of the kinematics of the system. These algorithms will use knowledge of the system's kinematics, including its singular configurations (configurations where the robot arm instantaneously loses a degree-of-freedom of movement capability), to achieve the desired control. The controllers will first be simulated and refined using MATLAB. Once functionality has been verified through simulation, the control algorithms will then be implemented and thoroughly tested on two existing mobile-manipulator systems in the Mechatronic and Robotic Systems Laboratory, UOIT. The benefits of this work will be control algorithms that can be used on any mobile manipulator to allow for more intuitive control of these systems by their operators. With enhanced control strategies, mobile manipulators can be used for increasingly complex tasks in hazardous environments, such as those found in the mining, nuclear, undersea, manufacturing, and security fields.