Fundamentals in Modeling and Control of Mobile Manipulators

"Preface In the robotics and automation literature, mobile manipulators (manipulators mounted on mobile bases, platforms or vehicles) have received much attention since the beginning of the nineties in 20th century for its extended space of operation andextra degrees of freedom offered by the vehicle for accomplishing specific (typically , "long range") manipulative tasks that otherwise could not be executed and accomplished. With a mobile platform, mobile manipulators can moving around and reach to places unfriendly to human beings, and perform operations at over a large space, or long range. Indeed, they can find a wide range of applications including (i) service or security applications at factories, offices, or homes, (ii) search and rescue operations in a harsh, demanding and/or dangerous environment, (iii) remote operations or explorations in remote place or space, and among others. Such systems combine the complementary advantages of mobile platforms and robotic arms for extend operational rangesan functionality, and at the same times bring along the complexity and difficulty in dynamic modelling and control system design for such a class of systems. One the one hand, mobile robotic manipulators possess strongly coupled dynamics of mobile platforms and robotic manipulators, not to mention the non-holonomic constraints introduced by the wheeled/tracked mobile platforms, which present much difficulties in the motion planning, control, coordination and cooperation of such systems. On the other hand, much advances in nonlinear system analysis and control system design offer powerful tools and fundamental concepts for the control of mobile manipulator systems"--

Zhijun Li is a professor in the College of Automation Science and Engineering at the South China University of Technology. Dr. Li is an IEEE Senior Member. He is an editor of the Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems. His current research interests include adaptive/robust control, mobile manipulators, and nonholonomic systems.

Shuzhi Sam Ge is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Social Robotics Laboratory, Interactive Digital Media Institute, at the National University of Singapore, and director of the Robotics Institute at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu. He has co-authored five books and published more than 300 international journal and conference papers. He has been an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, and is currently an associate editor for Automatica, as well as an editor for International Journal of Social Robotics, International Journal of Control, Automation & Systems, and the Taylor & Francis Automation and Control Engineering Series. His current research interests include social robotics, adaptive control, hybrid systems, and intelligent systems.