Grid-based Cyclic Robot Allocation for Object Carrying

Object carrying by a multi-robot group of spherical robots is a versatile object transportation strategy compared to the traditional grasping, pushing or caging methods proposed in literature. In this paper we address the fundamental problem of multi-robot allocation for object carrying by a group of spherical robots. A grid-based cyclic robot allocation (GCRA) method for spherical robots is proposed along with specific stability criterion, that designs the grid size parameters and identifies the minimum number of robots required based on the arbitrary shape of a given object for stable omni-directional translation of the object on a planar surface. An analytical proof of the proposed cyclic robot allocation method is shown verifying stability of the transportation process. Experimental results of robot allocation using GCRA for several arbitrary shapes validate the proposed method.