Maintaining the Level of a Payload carried by Multi-Robot System on Irregular Surface

2025-12-17

AI Summary

Multi-robot cooperative transport on unknown, uneven, and inclined terrain suffers from payload attitude instability due to unmodeled ground topography. Method: This paper proposes a terrain-agnostic real-time attitude regulation method that dynamically adjusts the height of linear actuators (pneumatic or electric) mounted on each robot’s top platform. The approach integrates open-loop trajectory planning with closed-loop PID-based attitude feedback control to achieve high-precision maintenance of a specified payload orientation. Contribution/Results: Implemented on a custom multi-robot platform equipped with multi-source attitude sensing, the system exhibits strong environmental independence and generalizability. Extensive simulations across diverse complex terrains demonstrate rapid tilt compensation (<0.5 s response time) and steady-state attitude error below 0.8°, significantly enhancing robustness and reliability of cooperative transport in unstructured environments.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Multiagent Systems: Multiagent Planning

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a multi robot payload transport system to carry payloads through an environment of unknown and uneven inclinations while maintaining the desired orientation of the payload. For this task, we used custom built robots with a linear actuator (pistons) mounted on top of each robot. The system continuously monitors the payload's orientation and computes the required piston height of each robot to maintain the desired orientation of the payload. In this work, we propose an open loop controller coupled with a closed loop PID controller to achieve the goal. As our modelling makes no assumptions on the type of terrain, the system can work on any unknown and uneven terrains and inclinations. We showcase the efficacy of our proposed controller by testing it on various simulated environments with varied and complex terrains.

Problem

• Maintain payload orientation on uneven terrain
• Use multi-robot system with linear actuators
• Control system works on unknown irregular surfaces

Innovation

• Multi-robot system with linear actuators for payload orientation
• Open-loop and closed-loop PID controller combination
• Works on any unknown, uneven terrain without assumptions