Optimized control for human-multi-robot collaborative manipulation via multi-player Q-learning

In this paper, optimized interaction control is investigated for human-multi-robot collaboration con-trol problems, which cannot be described by the traditional impedance controller. To realize global optimized interaction performance, the multi-player non-zero sum game theory is employed to obtain the optimized interaction control of each robot agent. Regarding the game strategies, Nash equilibrium strategy is utilized in this paper. In human-multi-robot collaboration problems, the dynamics parameters of the human arm and the manipulated object are usually unknown. To obviate the dependence on these parameters, the multi-player Q-learning method is employed. Moreover, for the human-multi-robot collaboration problem, the optimized solution is difficult to resolve due to the existence of the desired reference position. A multi-player Nash Q-learning algorithm considering the desired reference position is proposed to deal with the problem. The validity of the proposed method is verified through simulation studies. (C) 2021 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.