Off-road Mobile Manipulation

This project will investigate how mobile manipulators can operate and interact in natural environments like rainforests, grassland, shrubland, farmland, or desert ecosystems. This research project would explore how to control a continuous track or quadruped mobile manipulator in outdoor natural environments with many obstacles and constraints.

  • Is holistic mobile manipulation possible with uneven terrain? As a mobile robot traverses rough ground, the terrain difference will cause feedback in the end-effector position.
  • The mobile manipulator must overcome obstacle challenges, i.e. traverse around a log/stump/shrub to manipulate the point of interest. How do we incorporate this capability in a reactive closed-loop motion controller?

Chief Investigators