![](bg8.png)
searching the best solution.
Table 6: Final selection of the best footstep between (1, 1,
1) and (1, 5, 1).
Iterations: Without breakdown + Breakdown axes 3 and 4
Footsteps
Task
1
Task
2
Task
3
Task
4
Task
5
1, 1, 1
Without breakdown
75 3555 1719 1647 1638
With breakdown
110 4039 2004 1932 1933
1, 5, 1
Without breakdown
75 810 395 410 411
With breakdown
85 905 444 422 420
4 CONCLUSION
Throughout this paper, we deal with the development
of a novel generic approach to control autonomous
mobile manipulators. The proposed approach is
centered upon an agent-based framework. For the
implementation, we have used the JADE platform
which is one of the most interesting multi-agent
development frameworks. A graphical interface was
developed in order to perform the various validation
scenarios. Finally, simulation results have been
presented and discussed.
The control approach assigns a hybrid agent to
control the mobile base (Mobile base agent), a
reactive agent to control each articulation of the
manipulator (Joint agent), and a hybrid Supervisory
agent to coordinate and to synchronize between the
previous agents. Each Control agent has its own local
goal to be reached independently from the other
agents. It consists of bringing the end-effector as
close as possible from the imposed Target position.
In its current version, the proposed approach
considers a default static selection of footsteps for
each Control agent. Consequently, finding the most
fitted combination of footsteps was an important
quest. Details of the methodology and the measures
we have followed to search the best combination,
were presented in this paper.
As an improvement of the proposed approach, we
intend to implement a heuristic-based technique for
dynamically tuning the footsteps. A fuzzy-logic
inference system seems to be a realistic choice.
Future perspective consists, also, of implementing
and testing the proposed approach on the physical
experimental mobile manipulator robotic platform
(RobuTER/ULM) while accomplishing real
positioning tasks.
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