Fischer, Lars (FZI), Flögel, Daniel (FZI), Hohmann, Soeren (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology)

Rendezvous and Docking of Mobile Ground Robots for Efficient Transportation Systems

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "S25c-Cooperative and Connected Autonomous Systems" (TH-LA-T25), Thursday, November 20, 2025, 16:40−17:00, Cooleangata 4

2025 IEEE 28th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), November 18-21, 2025, Gold Coast, Australia

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on October 18, 2025

Abstract

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 model predictive control (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.