Linear Time-Varying MPC for Nonprehensile Object Manipulation with a Nonholonomic Mobile Robot
This work addresses nonprehensile manipulation for mobile robots, but it is incremental as it applies an existing control method to a specific scenario.
The paper tackled the problem of manipulating an object by pushing with a nonholonomic mobile robot, addressing slippage due to friction constraints, and achieved successful manipulation in simulation using a Pioneer 3-DX robot.
This paper proposes a technique to manipulate an object with a nonholonomic mobile robot by pushing, which is a nonprehensile manipulation motion primitive. Such a primitive involves unilateral constraints associated with the friction between the robot and the manipulated object. Violating this constraint produces the slippage of the object during the manipulation, preventing the correct achievement of the task. A linear time-varying model predictive control is designed to include the unilateral constraint within the control action properly. The approach is verified in a dynamic simulation environment through a Pioneer 3-DX wheeled robot executing the pushing manipulation of a package.