Experiment Videos of the Force-Based Non-Prehensile Cooperative Transportation of Objects with Mobile Robots

The videos provided show two experimental results of cooperative object transportation using lightweight omnidirectional mobile robots. In particular, the mobile robots shall transport two different polygonal, but non-convex, objects along predefined paths. No central decision entity is employed; the tasks are accomplished in a purely distributed manner using inter-robot communication. Novelly, the formation synthesis relies on a force-based consideration that explicitly takes into account the physical limitations of the robotic agents. Due to this, if necessary, multiple robots are placed along one edge in order to exert the desired force acting on the object. This is exemplarily shown in the video and demonstrates one crucial advantage compared to purely position-based approaches. Furthermore, an underlying hybrid position-force controller is utilized to govern the individual pushing forces of the robots. The interacting force is measured by each agent using a self-designed onboard force-sensing unit. In the videos, the direction of the unilateral force sensor is indicated by white rectangles. Moreover, the measured force is visualized by the red rectangles superimposed onto the white ones.