End-Effector Stabilization of a 10-DOF Mobile Manipulator using Nonlinear Model Predictive Control
This addresses stabilization challenges for mobile manipulators in tasks like material handling, but it is incremental as it applies NMPC to a specific robotic system.
The paper tackled motion control for a 10-DOF mobile manipulator by designing a Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) controller, achieving high positioning accuracy in real-time simulations with tractable computational cost.
Motion control of mobile manipulators (a robotic arm mounted on a mobile base) can be challenging for complex tasks such as material and package handling. In this paper, a task-space stabilization controller based on Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) is designed and implemented to a 10 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) mobile manipulator which consists of a 7-DOF robotic arm and a 3-DOF mobile base. The system model is based on kinematic models where the end-effector orientation is parameterized directly by a rotation matrix. The state and control constraints as well as singularity constraints are explicitly included in the NMPC formulation. The controller is tested using real-time simulations, which demonstrate high positioning accuracy with tractable computational cost.