Collaborative control theory for robotic systems with reconfigurable end effectors

Alleviate cost of robotic system peripherals is a major concern in modern robotic workstations. Addition of flexibility to system peripherals is one sought direction. High end effector flexibility comes with a high robustness cost making such a solution impractical in many situations. Reconfigurable end effectors offer an intermediate solution between flexible and dedicated end effectors. Such end effectors have an adjustable structure facilitating adaptation to production needs of a family of parts. Design and operation of robotic workstation with reconfigurable end effectors is complicated as it requires balancing multiple, conflicting considerations. In addition, for utilizing their advantages they require a high level of collaboration with their work environment. Collaborative control theory (CCT) is a detailed framework for establishing, controlling and evaluating multi-agent collaboration. Collaboration requirements planning (CRP) is an important facet of CCT, guiding both off-line and on-line collaboration planning and control. Conflict resolution is another important facet of CCT. In the current research we adapt the methodology for collaboration requirements planning with conflict resolution for design and control of robotic systems with reconfigurable end effectors. We additionally develop a methodology for establishing the optimal degree of reconfigurability (DOR) of a system based on a method for design for parallelism. The framework is presented along with two preliminary case studies: multirobot assembly and harvesting.