Localization, obstacle avoidance planning and control of a cooperative cable parallel robot for multiple mobile cranes

• Cable parallel robots for multiple mobile cranes are designed.
• Localization analysis of the robots are reported.
• Obstacle avoidance planning and automatic leveling control are performed.
• Illustrative simulation studies highlight the performance of the robots.

This paper addresses the cooperative problems in terms of localization, obstacle avoidance planning and automatic leveling control for a cable parallel robot for multiple mobile cranes (CPRMCs). The design model of the CPRMCs is elaborated on. The three-dimensional grid map method is utilized to plot the environment map based on the operation environment model. By combining the relative localization method with the absolute localization method, a cooperative localization scheme of the CPRMCs is developed, and an improved localization algorithm is designed on the basis of multilateration method. Then, according to the grid-based artificial potential field method, a global path planning of the CPRMCs is performed. Considering the possible collision of the single mobile crane, the sensor technology is applied to the cooperative obstacle avoidance. In addition, a four-point collaborative leveling method is adopted for automatic leveling control of the platform of the CPRMCs. Finally, the effectiveness of the CPRMCs system is verified through simulations.