Attractor dynamics approach to joint transportation by autonomous robots: theory, implementation and validation on the factory floor

This paper shows how non-linear attractor dynamics can be used to control teams of two autonomous mobile robots that coordinate their motion in order to transport large payloads in unknown environments, which might change over time and may include narrow passages, corners and sharp U-turns. Each rob...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor principal: Machado, Toni Daniel Neto (author)
Outros Autores: Malheiro, Tiago (author), Monteiro, Sérgio (author), Erlhagen, Wolfram (author), Bicho, Estela (author)
Formato: article
Idioma:eng
Publicado em: 2019
Assuntos:
Texto completo:http://hdl.handle.net/1822/69728
País:Portugal
Oai:oai:repositorium.sdum.uminho.pt:1822/69728
Descrição
Resumo:This paper shows how non-linear attractor dynamics can be used to control teams of two autonomous mobile robots that coordinate their motion in order to transport large payloads in unknown environments, which might change over time and may include narrow passages, corners and sharp U-turns. Each robot generates its collision-free motion online as the sensed information changes. The control architecture for each robot is formalized as a non-linear dynamical system, where by design attractor states, i.e. asymptotically stable states, dominate and evolve over time. Implementation details are provided, and it is further shown that odometry or calibration errors are of no significance. Results demonstrate flexible and stable behavior in different circumstances: when the payload is of different sizes; when the layout of the environment changes from one run to another; when the environment is dynamice.g. following moving targets and avoiding moving obstacles; and when abrupt disturbances challenge team behavior during the execution of the joint transportation task.