Unified Approach for Hybrid Motion Control of MOCA Based on Weighted Whole-Body Cartesian Impedance Formulation

This work presents a unified approach for hybrid motion control of the MObile Collaborative Robotic Assistant (MOCA). The objective is to develop a loco-manipulation controller, enabling various couplings of the arm and the mobile base movements, and particularly their purely decoupled motions. The proposed method is based on a weighted whole-body Cartesian impedance controller, where the decoupling of the motions can be achieved by solving the local optimization problem of the weighted joint torques in the first task space and its nullspace, respectively. Under this control framework, by tuning the weighting terms and a nullspace gain, three motion modes, i.e. Locomotion, Manipulation, and Modified Loco-Manipulation, are implemented. To evaluate the proposed approach, a door opening task that requires different mobility patterns of the arm, the mobile base, and their coupled movements is demonstrated. The experiment results validate the proposed methodology and provide a comprehensive understanding of the differences among the above motion modes.