Centralized Model Predictive Control for Collaborative Loco-Manipulation - RSS 2023 Supplementary

Supplementary video for the RSS 2023 paper
"Centralized Model Predictive Control for Collaborative Loco-Manipulation" by Flavio De Vincenti and Stelian Coros.
Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) 2023
Abstract:
In this work, we extend the model predictive control methods developed in the legged robotics literature to collaborative loco-manipulation settings. The systems we study entail a payload collectively carried by multiple quadruped robots equipped with a mechanical arm. We use a direct multiple shooting method to solve the resulting high-dimensional, optimal control problems for trajectories of ground reaction forces, manipulation wrenches, and stepping locations. To capture the dominant dynamics of the system, we model each agent and the shared payload as single rigid bodies. We demonstrate the versatility of our framework in a series of simulation experiments involving collaborative manipulation over challenging terrains.
Acknowledgment:
This research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through the National Centre of Competence in Digital Fabrication (NCCR DFAB) and through Grant No. 200021 200644, and by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant No. 866480).
We thank Roi Poranne, Dongho Kang, Yijiang Huang, Oliver Stark, and Camilla Casamento Tumeo for their invaluable support and assistance in creating the figures and the accompanying video.
Paper link:
www.roboticspr...
Computational Robotics Lab:
crl.ethz.ch/
/ computationalr2