Nonholonomic cooperative manipulation of polygonal objects in the plane

This paper presents a framework in which a group of nonholonomic wheeled robot manipulators are cooperatively utilized to manipulate a polygonal object in SE(2). In this framework, the robots are assumed to contact the object without friction, applying forces only in the normal direction. The dynamics of the whole system can be decomposed into task and nullspaces (internal motions). The desired object pose is achieved by controlling the task-space. On the other hand, as the contact point is driven to its desired value by controlling the internal motions, force-closure is ensured. An extensive simulation study is presented to validate the proposed framework.