Payload Maximization for Mobile Flexible Manipulators in Environment with an Obstacle

A mobile flexible manipulator is developed in order to achieve high performance requirements such as high-speed operation, increased high payload to mass ratio, less weight, and safer operation due to reduced inertia. Hence, this paper presents a method for finding the Maximum Allowable Dynamic Load (MADL) of geometrically nonlinear flexible link mobile manipulators. The full dynamic model of a wheeled mobile base and the mounted flexible manipulator is considered with respect to dynamics of non-holonomic constraint in environment including an obstacle. In dynamical analysis, an efficient model is employed to describe the treatment of a flexible structure in which both the geometric elastic nonlinearity and the foreshortening effects are considered. Then, a path planning algorithm is developed to find the maximum payload that the optimal strategy is based on the indirect solution to the open-loop optimal control problem. In order to verify the effectiveness of the presented algorithm, several simulation studies are carried out for finding the optimal path between two points in the presence of obstacles. The results clearly show the effect of flexibility and the proposed approach on mobile flexible manipulators.