Autonomous multiple‐trolley collection system with nonholonomic robots: Design, control, and implementation

Abstract

The task of collecting and transporting luggage trolleys in airports, characterized by its complexity within dynamic public environments, presents both an ongoing challenge and a promising opportunity for automated service robots. Previous research has primarily developed on universal platforms with robot arms or focused on handling a single trolley, creating a gap in providing cost‐effective and efficient solutions for practical scenarios. In this paper, we propose a low‐cost mobile manipulation robot incorporated with an autonomy framework for the collection and transportation of multiple trolleys that can significantly enhance operational efficiency. The method involves a novel design of the mechanical system and a vision‐based control strategy. We design a lightweight manipulator and the docking mechanism, optimized for the sequential stacking and transportation of trolleys. On the basis of the Control Lyapunov Function and Control Barrier Function, we propose a vision‐based controller with online Quadratic Programming, which improves the docking accuracy. The practical application of our system is demonstrated in real‐world scenarios, where it successfully executes the multiple‐trolley collection task.