Mobile Manipulator

A robot combining a mobile base with a robot arm, able to move and do work with its hands.

A mobile manipulator pairs a mobile base, such as an AGV/AMR or a wheeled chassis, with a robot arm; the term “compound robot” (复合机器人) is common in China's robotics industry, while academic English usually just says “mobile manipulator.” A robot arm alone can only work at a fixed station, and a mobile robot alone can only carry things; combining the two lets a robot travel to different spots in a workshop, warehouse, or home to grasp, load and unload parts, or open doors and drawers. The hard part is that the base and arm must be planned and controlled together, and navigation errors propagate to the end effector. Common academic platforms include Hello Robot Stretch, TIAGo, Fetch, and Mobile ALOHA; many wheeled humanoid robots are, at their core, also this kind of system.

ExampleIn a factory, an AMR carrying a collaborative arm on its back drives between several machine tools, automatically loading and unloading parts.

Related

Mobile Manipulation · Mobile Base (Chassis) · Autonomous Mobile Robot · Wheeled Humanoid Robot · Hello Robot Stretch · Mobile ALOHA

Sources

The Robot Report: Stretch 3 mobile manipulator