Mobile manipulators, working cooperatively with people, have the potential to significantly enhance quality of life for older adults and others with physical limitations or mental impairment. However, in order to gain widespread acceptance in domestic settings these robotic systems must be safe, effective, and adaptable. In this talk, we describe recent results in safe control of mobile manipulators using control barrier functions and control Lyapunov functions, both defined in the task (or operational) space. Our approach is implemented in an optimization-based framework, which allows easy extension to task-level control in dynamic settings.

- part of Session 1 "Autonomy and Interaction in Robotics" -