In-Motion physical coupling of multiple mobile ground robots has the potential to enable new applications like in-motion transfer that improves efficiency in handling and transferring goods, which tackles current challenges in logistics. A key challenge lies in achieving reliable autonomous in-motion physical coupling of two mobile ground robots starting at any initial position. Existing approaches neglect the modeling of the docking interface and the strategy for approaching it, resulting in uncontrolled collisions that make in-motion physical coupling either impossible or inefficient. To address this challenge, we propose a central mpc approach that explicitly models the dynamics and states of two omnidirectional wheeled robots, incorporates constraints related to their docking interface, and implements an approaching strategy for rendezvous and docking. This novel approach enables omnidirectional wheeled robots with a docking interface to physically couple in motion regardless of their initial position. In addition, it makes in-motion transfer possible, which is 19.75% more time- and 21.04% energy-efficient compared to a non-coupling approach in a logistic scenario.

翻译：多个移动地面机器人的运动中物理耦合具有实现新应用的潜力，例如通过运动中转运提高货物处理和转运效率，从而应对当前物流领域面临的挑战。关键挑战在于实现两个移动地面机器人从任意初始位置出发的可靠自主运动中物理耦合。现有方法忽略了对对接接口的建模及接近策略，导致不受控的碰撞，使得运动中物理耦合要么无法实现，要么效率低下。为解决这一挑战，我们提出了一种中心化模型预测控制方法，该方法显式建模了两个全向轮式机器人的动力学与状态，纳入了与其对接接口相关的约束，并实施了用于会合与对接的接近策略。这种新颖方法使得配备对接接口的全向轮式机器人无论初始位置如何均能在运动中实现物理耦合。此外，该方法使运动中转运成为可能，在物流场景中与非耦合方法相比，时间效率提升19.75%，能源效率提升21.04%。