Robust Mobile Manipulation in
Unstructured and Human Environments

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Welcome to Our Project Website
This project initiated in 1999 as a collaborative project between the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) (formerly known as Gintic Institute of Manufacturing Technology) and the National University of Singapore. The project also involved Stanford University, specifically Professor Oussama Khatib of Computer Science Department, as the advisor to the project.

The focus of the project is on mobile manipulation. It is headed by Associate Professor Marcelo Ang of the NUS and Dr. Lim Ser Yong of SIMTech. The first phase started in June 1999 and ended in June 2001. The project is currently into its second phase which builds upon the capabilities achieved in the first phase of the project. In the first phase, control algorithm based on the Operational Space Formulation was implemented into a modular robotic control software. This enabled a unified motion and force control which was demonstrated at the end of the first phase in the demonstration of aircraft canopy polishing.

In this application, the manipulator applies a constant polishing force on the canopy with no prior knowledge of the surface profile and keeps the polishing tool normal to the canopy surface at all time.

Mobile base control and navigation algorithms were also developed, implemented on the Nomadic XR4000 robot. Mobile manipulation was then achieved by mounting the manipulator arm onto the mobile base and executing a dynamically compensated motion where arm and base behave as one robot. Details of the project can be found in the "project" section of the website.

The second phase of the project aims to build further the capabilities achieved in the first phase. An additional goal has also been added to go further into the design and development of (wheeled) mobile base modules with torque control.

The project is sponsored by and housed at the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, or SIMTech in short.

The institute is a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), which contributes to the competitiveness of Singapore industry through the generation and application of advanced manufacturing technology.