Mobile manipulation: The robotic assistant

Mobile manipulation capabilities are key to many new applications of robotics in space, underwater, construction, and service environments. This paper discusses the development of robotic “assistance” capabilities to aid workers in the accomplishment of a variety of physical operations and presents various control strategies developed for vehicle-arm coordination, compliant motion tasks, and cooperative manipulation between multiple platforms. These strategies have been implemented on two holonomic mobile platforms designed and built at Stanford in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratories and Nomadic Technologies.