Title: Adaptive backstepping control of multi-mobile manipulators handling a rigid object in coordination

Authors: Abdelkrim Brahmi; Maarouf Saad; Guy Gauthier; Wen-Hong Zhu; Jawhar Ghommam

Addresses: Electrical Engineering Department, Université du Québec, École de technologie supérieure, 1100 Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal, H3C 1K3, Quebec, Canada ' Electrical Engineering Department, Université du Québec, École de technologie supérieure, 1100 Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal, H3C 1K3, Quebec, Canada ' Electrical Engineering Department, Université du Québec, École de technologie supérieure, 1100 Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal, H3C 1K3, Quebec, Canada ' 6767 route de l' Aeroport Saint-Hubert, J3Y 8Y9, Canada ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive backstepping control scheme applied to a group of mobile manipulator robots transporting a rigid object in coordination. All the dynamic parameters of the robotic system, including the handled object and the mobile manipulators, are assumed to be unknown but constant. The problem of uncertain parameters is resolved by using the virtual decomposition approach (VDC). This approach was originally applied to multiple manipulator robot systems. In this paper, the VDC approach is combined with backstepping control to ensure a good position tracking. The controller developed in this work ensures that the position error in the workspace converges to zero, and that the internal force error is bounded. The global stability of the entire system is proven based on the appropriate choice of Lyapunov function using virtual stability of each subsystem, based on the principle of the virtual work. An experimental validation is carried out for two mobile manipulators moving a rigid object in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords: backstepping control; adaptive control; virtual decomposition approach; multiple mobile manipulator robots.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2019.097996

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2019 Vol.31 No.2, pp.169 - 181

Accepted: 30 Jan 2018
Published online: 26 Feb 2019 *

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