HYBRID MOBILE ROBOT SYSTEMS: SYMBIOSIS OF LOCOMOTION AND MANIPULATION

This book presents the development of mobile robot systems with a hybrid mechanism whereby the locomotion platform and manipulator arm are designed as one entity to support both locomotion and manipulation symbiotically and interchangeably. Mechanical designs are described as well as dynamic simulation methods to analyze robot mobility and functionality. The book also presents a new generalized control hardware architecture based on embedded internal wireless communication network between robot subsystems that also provides operational fault-tolerance. The new control architecture and mechanical design demonstrate significant qualitative and quantitative performance improvements of mobile robots in terms of the new locomotion and manipulation capabilities they provide. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the new operative tasks that the mobile robots can accomplish, such as traversing challenging obstacles, and manipulating objects of various capacities; functions often required in various challenging applications, such as search & rescue missions, hazardous site inspections, and planetary explorations.