Operational space consensus of multiple heterogeneous robots without velocity measurements

This paper proposes a control algorithm for networks of multiple heterogeneous robot manipulators, which solves the leader–follower and the leaderless consensus problems in the operational space. In the leader–follower scenario, the controller ensures that all the robots in the network asymptotically reach a given leader pose (position and orientation), provided that, at least, one follower robot has access to the leader pose. Without a leader pose, in the leaderless problem, the robots asymptotically reach a pose of consensus. The controller is a simple distributed proportional plus damping injection (P+d) scheme which does not require velocity measurements. A singularity-free representation, unit quaternions, is used to describe the orientation of each manipulator. The paper presents some simulations, with a network of six 6-Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF) manipulators, and experiments, with a network of three 6-DoF manipulators, to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.