MODE-SWITCHING OF AUTONOMOUS MOBILE ROBOT BASED ON BODY SWAY

Abstract

The flexibility of transportation using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) in manufacturing factories can be improved by introducing a manual operation mode, in which the operator interacts with the robot body. In the previous study, a manual operation mode was implemented with a force-sensorless power-assist function according to impedance control based on the robot body sway produced by the operator's touching force on a stationary AMR. In this paper, a mode-switching algorithm is proposed to switch from autonomous navigation to manual operation for an autonomous driving AMR. Control-mode switching is achieved by comparing the observed sway with the estimated behavior based on the mathematical model of the AMR to distinguish the sway due to the operator's touching force from those due to acceleration/deceleration generated during autonomous navigation. The experimental results demonstrate that the control mode can be successfully switched to the manual operation mode using the proposed algorithm without any additional sensors.