Automatic trajectory tracking of a search camera on a redundant mobile manipulator considering obstacle avoidance

Recently, tele-operated robots have been engaged in the search and rescue of victims in disaster areas, but operation of the rescue robots has proven to be excessively complex. One reason for this is that an operator has to operate the mobile platform and the manipulator of a rescue robot simultaneously, for example, when the operator finds a victim. In this study, a control method for a mobile manipulator is proposed in order to simplify the tele-operation of a robot. In our system, the operator needs only provide the manipulator´s end-effector target position as input on an image from the camera mounted on the robot, and the robot automatically moves such that the camera reaches the target position. The robot thereby avoids degradation of manipulability while following the target trajectory of the end-effector. Moreover, the robot also avoids obstacles in the environment. The reduced gradient method is extended in the proposed control system by adding an automatic selection process for degrees of freedom in the sub tasks. We verify the effectiveness of the proposed control system by means of a simulation.