Path Following for Mobile Manipulators

Abstract

This paper presents a framework of path following via set stabilization for mobile manipulator systems. The mobile manipulator is modelled as a single redundant dynamic system. The mobile base considered belongs to a large class of wheeled ground vehicles, including those with nonholonomic constraints. Kinematic redundancies are resolved by designing a controller that solves a suitably defined constrained quadratic optimization problem, which can be easily tuned by the designer to achieve various desired poses. By employing partial feedback linearization, the proposed path following controller has a clear physical meaning. The desired path to be followed is a spline in the output space of the system. The controller simultaneously controls the manipulator and mobile base. The result is a unified path following controller without any trajectory planning performed on the mobile base. The approach is experimentally verified on a 4-degree-of-freedom (4-DOF) manipulator mounted on a differential drive mobile platform.