Equilibrium-Driven Smooth Separation and Navigation of Marsupial Robotic Systems

2025-06-16

IEEE Control Systems Letters

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of achieving smooth passenger separation and autonomous navigation to a target location during motion for a Mars kangaroo-inspired vehicle-passenger robot system. We propose a dynamic equilibrium-point migration mechanism based on the gradient of a cubic polynomial potential field. By employing moving-coordinate-system modeling and nonlinear control design, the method enables continuous evolution of the attraction domain, ensuring seamless integration between separation and navigation tasks. Lyapunov stability analysis rigorously guarantees asymptotic stability of the time-varying equilibrium point. Simulation results demonstrate oscillation-free separation, smooth trajectory generation, and strong robustness in complex obstacle-rich environments. To our knowledge, this is the first work to explicitly incorporate a time-varying gradient structure of the potential field into dynamic equilibrium-point regulation. The proposed framework establishes a novel paradigm for integrated multi-body cooperative separation and navigation control.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Motion and Path Planning
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Energy management for devices in mobile Web and WoT environments
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an equilibrium-driven controller that enables a marsupial carrier-passenger robotic system to achieve smooth carrier-passenger separation and then to navigate the passenger robot toward a predetermined target point. Particularly, we design a potential gradient in the form of a cubic polynomial for the passenger's controller as a function of the carrier-passenger and carrier-target distances in the moving carrier's frame. This introduces multiple equilibrium points corresponding to the zero state of the error dynamic system during carrier-passenger separation. The change of equilibrium points is associated with the change in their attraction regions, enabling smooth carrier-passenger separation and afterwards seamless navigation toward the target. Finally, simulations demonstrate the effectiveness and adaptability of the proposed controller in environments containing obstacles.

Problem

• Achieve smooth separation of marsupial carrier-passenger robots
• Navigate passenger robot to target using equilibrium-driven control
• Handle obstacle-rich environments with adaptive controller

Innovation

• Equilibrium-driven controller enables smooth separation
• Cubic polynomial potential gradient design
• Multiple equilibrium points for seamless navigation