Abstract
This paper discusses manual motion control (MMC) problems. MMC problems are seen in conveyance of a large amount of products in factories and stores. One of the most successful examples of MMC is “power assist”. The power-assisted systems have been introduced to reduce workers' loads in industrial production. In near future, higher efficiency of works by power-assisted systems will be required. One of the methods to improve the efficiency is connection and cooperation of plural systems. Then, this paper utilizes power-assisted carts as a controlled object and proposes a control system realizing such conveyance on the basis of the principle of the power assist. In particular, smooth connection without any stops, invariant maneuverability and tumble prevention of conveyed objects are considered. The effectiveness of the proposed control system is verified by experiments and simulations.
