Distributed Cooperative Manipulation under Timed Temporal Specifications

This paper addresses the problem of cooperative manipulation of a single object by N robotic agents under local goal specifications given as Metric Interval Temporal Logic (MITL) formulas. In particular, we propose a distributed model-free control protocol for the trajectory tracking of the cooperatively manipulated object without necessitating feedback of the contact forces/torques or inter-agent communication. This allows us to abstract the motion of the coupled object-agents system as a finite transition system and, by employing standard automata-based methodologies, we derive a hybrid control algorithm for the satisfaction of a given MITL formula. In addition, we use load sharing coefficients to represent potential differences in power capabilities among the agents. Finally, simulation studies verify the validity of the proposed scheme.QC 20170811