Cooperative manipulation by autonomous intelligent robots

Cooperative manipulation by autonomous intelligent robots have good potential for improving the ability of robotic manipulation and expanding the domains where the robot may be used. This paper focuses on the method for searching proper desired force of each robot based on local sensor feedback and heigh level communication. First, we propose the adaptive force direction control, which is useful for monitoring the state of force equilibrium, and describe the theoretical background of this control method. Second, we describe the strategy for searching proper desired force using proposed control method and heigh level communication. We also describe a control system architecture which is suitable for these operations. In this control system, each manipulator motion function, each sensor function and each message passing operation are programmed as primitive tasks which run in parallel. Third, we illustrate the usefulness of proposed method with some experiments of tumbling operation by two autonomous robots.