Cooperative object transportation using parallel line formation with a circular shift

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper presents a new cooperative object transportation technique using parallel line formation with a circular shift. Typical areas of research in relation to object transportation are grasping, pushing, and caging techniques, but these require precise grasping behaviors, iterative motion correction according to the object pose, and the real-time acquisition of the object shape, respectively. In this paper, the proposed technique does not need to consider the shape or the pose of objects, and equipped tools are not necessary for object transportation because objects are transported by pushing behavior only. Multiple robots create parallel line formation using a virtual electric dipole field and then push multiple objects into the formation. This parallel line is extended to the goal using cyclic motion by the robots and the objects are transported to the goal by pushing behavior. The above processes are decentralized and activated based on the finite state machine of each robot. Simulations and practical experiments are presented to verify the proposed technique.