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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Robotic Control Systems
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1442813

Maximising Wrench Capability for Mobile Manipulators with Experiments on an UVMS

Provisionally accepted
Wilhelm J Marais Wilhelm J Marais 1,2*Oscar Pizarro Oscar Pizarro 1,2,3*Stefan B Williams Stefan B Williams 1,2
  • 1 The University of Sydney, Darlington, Australia
  • 2 Australian Centre for Field Robotics, Sydney Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  • 3 NTNU, Trondheim, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This paper presents methods for finding optimal configurations and actuator forces/torques to maximise contact wrenches in a desired direction for Underwater Vehicles Manipulator Systems (UVMS). The wrench maximisation problem is formulated as a bi-level optimisation problem, with upper level variables in a low dimensional parameterised redundancy space, and a linear lower level problem. We additionally consider the cases of one or more manipulators with multiple contact forces, maximising wrench capability while tracking a trajectory, and generating large wrench impulses using dynamic motions. The specific cases of maximising force to lift a heavy load, and maximising torque during a valve turning operation are considered. Extensive experimental results are presented using a 6 degree of freedom underwater robotic platform equipped with a 4 degree of freedom manipulator, and show significant increases in wrench capability compared to existing methods for mobile manipulators.

    Keywords: Underwater manipulation, kinematic redundancy, bi-level optimisation, redundancy parameterisation, wrench maximisation, Trajectory optimisation

    Received: 03 Jun 2024; Accepted: 16 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Marais, Pizarro and Williams. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Wilhelm J Marais, The University of Sydney, Darlington, Australia
    Oscar Pizarro, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, Sydney Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, 2006, New South Wales, Australia

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