Planning coordinated motions for tethered planar mobile robots
This paper considers the motion planning problem for multiple tethered planar mobile robots. Each robot is attached to a fixed base by a flexible cable. Since the robots share a common workspace, the interactions amongst the robots, cables, and obstacles pose significant difficulties for planning. P...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/141229 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | This paper considers the motion planning problem for multiple tethered planar mobile robots. Each robot is attached to a fixed base by a flexible cable. Since the robots share a common workspace, the interactions amongst the robots, cables, and obstacles pose significant difficulties for planning. Previous works have studied the problem of detecting whether a target cable configuration is intersecting (or entangled). Here, we are interested in the motion planning problem: how to plan and coordinate the robot motions to realize a given non-intersecting target cable configuration. We identify four possible modes of motion, depending on whether (i) the robots move in straight lines or following their cable lines; (ii) the robots move sequentially or concurrently. We present an in-depth analysis of Straight/Concurrent, which is the most practically-interesting mode of motion. In particular, we propose algorithms that (a) detect whether a given target cable configuration is realizable by a Straight/Concurrent motion, and (b) return a valid coordinated motion plan. The algorithms are analyzed in detail and validated in simulations and in a hardware experiment. |
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