Dynamic Control of a Mobile Manipulator

Deals with the dynamic control of a mobile manipulator operating in busy environments such as hospitals. Major requirements within this application domain are safe, robust, and reliable task execution so that people can gain confidence in the robotic assistant. As a consequence the robot should move with smooth motions about both known and unknown obstacles. In our approach, this is achieved using collision-free dynamic bands, which represent a set of feasible paths for the robot platform and the manipulator. These bands have to interact in a way which satisfies both kinematic and dynamic constraints. Finally, paths within these bands have to be selected and tracked at execution time.