Predictive adaptive control of multiple robots in cooperative motion

The authors address the problem of controlling multiple robots manipulating a rigid object cooperatively when the robots and load parameters are uncertain. The linearity of the dynamics of the robots and the load with respect to the unknown parameters is exploited during the derivation of the parameter adaptation scheme. The update laws and the controller do not require measurements of the joint accelerations of the load acceleration. The least-squares estimation method is used to estimate the parameters of the multirobot system using prediction errors. The developed controller is based on the cancellation of the nonlinearities. The proposed controller guarantees global asymptotic tracking of the robot and load trajectories and the internal force trajectories