A mobile manipulator is a robot system built from a robotic manipulator arm mounted on a mobile platform.
A mobile manipulation system combines the mobility offered by a mobile platform and dexterity offered by the manipulator. The mobile platform offers an extended workspace to the manipulator and more degrees of freedom to operate in. However, the operation of such a system is challenging because of the many degrees of freedom and the unstructured environment that it performs in. A system is generally composed of the mobile platform, the robotic manipulator arm, vision components, and tooling components.
Mobile manipulation is a subject of focus in development and research environments.Mobile manipulators, either autonomous or remote operated, are used in many areas, such as space exploration, military operations, home care and health care. Within the industrial field, the implementation of mobile manipulators has been limited. The necessary technology entities (mobile platforms, robot manipulators, vision, and tooling) are, to a large extent, available from off-the-shelf components.[1]
Few implementations of mobile robots in the industrial field have been reported due to the center of attention being drawn on optimization of the individual technologies, especially robot manipulators[2] and tooling,[3] while the integration, use, and application have been neglected in the field of industrial mobile manipulation. This means that few implementations of mobile robots, in production environments, have been reported – e.g.[4] and.[5]
| Year | Robot name | Company / Research Institute | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Hilare 2bis | LAAS-CNRS, France | |
| 2000 | Jaume | Robotic Intelligence Lab, Jaume I University, Spain | |
| 2004 | FAuStO | University of Verona, Italy | |
| 2006 | MM-500 | Neobotix GmbH, Germany | |
| 2009 | Little Helper | Department of Production, Aalborg University, Denmark | |
| 2012 | G-WAM | Robotnik Automation & Barrett Technologies, Spain & United States | |
| 2012 | Human Support Robot (HSR)[6] | Toyota, Japan | |
| 2013 | UBR-1 | Unbounded Robotics, United States | |
| 2013 | X-WAM | Robotnik Automation & Barrett Technologies, Spain & United States | |
| 2015 | CARLoS | AIMEN, Spain | |
| 2015 | RB-1 | Robotnik Automation & Kinova Robotics, Spain & Canada | |
| 2016 | TIAGo[7] | PAL Robotics, Spain | |
| 2018 | MuR 205 | Institute of Assembly Technology, Leibniz University Hanover, Germany |
One recent example is the mobile manipulator "Little Helper" from the Department of Production at Aalborg University.[8]