Collaborative mobile industrial manipulator : a review of system architecture and applications

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the development of Collaborative Mobile Industrial Manipulator (CMIM), which is currently in high demand. Such a review is necessary to have an overall understanding about CMIM advanced technology. This is the first review to combine the system architecture and application which is necessary in order to gain a full understanding of the system. The classical framework of CMIM is firstly discussed, including hardware and software. Subsystems that are typically involved in hardware such as mobile platform, manipulator, end-effector and sensors are presented. With regards to software, planner, controller, perception, interaction and so on are also described. Following this, the common applications (logistics, manufacturing and assembly) in industry are surveyed. Finally, the trends are predicted and issues are indicated as references for CMIM researchers. Specifically, more research is needed in the areas of interaction, fully autonomous control, coordination and standards. Besides, experiments in real environment would be performed more and novel collaborative robotic systems would be proposed in future. Additionally, some advanced technology in other areas would also be applied into the system. In all, the system would become more intelligent, collaborative and autonomous.