Clearpath Mobile Manipulator to Automate your Warehouse [Video]

As I was writing in a previous blog post, ”2015 Year of the Mobile Manipulator?”, we can see that several companies are promoting this new kind of robot. In fact, Clearpath Robotics just released this video of Ridgeback in a warehouse automation process. To shed some light on mobile manipulation, here is what it’s all about. 

Before going into an explanation, take a look at the Clearpath video, it’s quite fun! 

From an application standpoint, there are four general steps in this video: global task planning, the movement of the mobile platform, the grasping step and the release step. Each step has a direct impact on the efficiency and reliability of the robot. 

Global Path Planning

So there are several points to identify here, first the robot has to plan the global task itself, in other words, locate itself and the object it is seeking, determine how it is going to get to the object, execute this …