Towards the use of dual quaternions for motion generation of nonholonomic mobile manipulators

A mobile manipulator, composed of a manipulator mounted on a vehicle, is a very useful system to achieve tasks in dangerous environments. However, it is a very complicated system to model and control. The use of a wheeled vehicle generally introduces nonholonomic constraints, and the combination of a vehicle and a manipulator generally introduces some kinematic redundancy. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of dual quaternions for the motion generation of a mobile manipulator with a nonholonomic vehicle. In this preliminary work, only planar cases are considered. Therefore, the principles of the planar quaternion theory are recalled. The description of the system in the planar quaternion space is developed. Some simulation results are then presented