Cooperative Object Transport Via Non-Contact Prehensile Pushing by Magnetic Forces

Cooperative robot systems are an essential candidate for object transportation solutions. They offer cost-efficient and flexible operation for various types of robotic tasks. The benefits of cooperative robot systems have triggered the improvement of the object transportation field. In this study, a new way of transporting objects by cooperative robots is presented. The proposed method is performed by the pushing action of the magnetic forces of the robots. The permanent magnets mounted on the mobile robots and the cart create this repelling force. The rectangular object carrier cart equipped with passive caster wheels can be manipulated on flat terrains easily and be assigned to carry different shapes of objects. Using a carrier cart has the advantage of eliminating the vertical loads on the robots. Controlling a non-contact pushing method offers a low computational burden since simple velocity and position updates are adequate for operation management. Compared with the other methods of object transportation systems, the non-contact pushing method provides a faster operation with less sensitivity to control errors. Both simulations and real-world experiments are conducted and the performances are given comparatively with a generalized frictional contact object-pushing method. The results show that the proposed method provides 10.48% faster and 20.03% more accurate object transportation compared to the frictional contact method. It is envisioned that the presented method can be a promising candidate for object transportation tasks in the industry.