Whole-Body MPC for a Dynamically Stable Mobile Manipulator

Understand

Autonomous mobile manipulation offers a dual advantage of mobility provided by a mobile platform and dexterity afforded by the manipulator.

• In this paper, we present a whole-body optimal control framework to jointly solve the problems of manipulation, balancing and interaction as one optimization problem for an inherently unstable robot.
• The optimization is performed using a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach; the optimal control problem is transcribed at the end-effector space, treating the position and orientation tasks in the MPC planner, and skillfully planning for end-effector contact forces.
• The proposed formulation evaluates how the control decisions aimed at end-effector tracking and environment interaction will affect the balance of the system in the future.