Control of manipulator/vehicle system for man-robot cooperation based on human intention

Proposes a control method for the manipulator/vehicle system which has redundant degrees of freedom. In order to control the system, the authors decompose the motion of the end effector in the inertial coordinate system into the vehicle´s motion and the manipulator´s motion because the motion of the end effector with respect to the inertial coordinate system is realized by both the manipulator´s motion and the vehicle´s motion. How to decompose the end effector´s motion is one of the key issues for the manipulator/vehicle system. If one wants to move the system to another place, the motion of the end effector should be realized by the vehicle´s motion. On the other hand, if one wants to manipulate an object, the motion of the end effector should be done by the manipulator´s motion. That is, the decomposition of the end effector´s motion in the inertial coordinate system should be done based on the human intention. The method proposed controls the motion of the manipulator and the motion of the vehicle based on the operator´s intention modelled by fuzzy rules. The experimental results illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed control method for the manipulator/vehicle system for man-robot cooperation