Rendezvous and Docking of Mobile Ground Robots for Efficient Transportation Systems

TL;DR

This paper presents a model predictive control approach enabling mobile ground robots to reliably rendezvous and dock in motion, improving efficiency in logistics through in-motion transfer of goods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel MPC-based method that models docking dynamics and strategies, allowing robots to physically couple in motion from arbitrary initial positions.

Findings

Achieves 19.75% more time efficiency in in-motion transfer.

Achieves 21.04% more energy efficiency in logistics scenarios.

Enables reliable in-motion docking regardless of initial positions.

Abstract

In-Motion physical coupling of multiple mobile ground robots has the potential to enable new applications like in-motion transfer that improves efficiency in handling and transferring goods, which tackles current challenges in logistics. A key challenge lies in achieving reliable autonomous in-motion physical coupling of two mobile ground robots starting at any initial position. Existing approaches neglect the modeling of the docking interface and the strategy for approaching it, resulting in uncontrolled collisions that make in-motion physical coupling either impossible or inefficient. To address this challenge, we propose a central mpc approach that explicitly models the dynamics and states of two omnidirectional wheeled robots, incorporates constraints related to their docking interface, and implements an approaching strategy for rendezvous and docking. This novel approach enables omnidirectional wheeled robots with a docking interface to physically couple in motion regardless of their initial position. In addition, it makes in-motion transfer possible, which is 19.75% more time- and 21.04% energy-efficient compared to a non-coupling approach in a logistic scenario.