# Study: Effects of Non-Rigid Bases on Mobile Manipulators in Sustained Contact Tasks

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-28T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/nmeq22hcf6j3mxdkv7dyw98je
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.36725

## Summary

Using a sanding task as a case study, the paper combines simulation with experiments on two lightweight, unactuated wheeled testbeds to characterize non-rigid base effects in mobile manipulators. Under low base-ground resistance, only 54-70% of a 100 N command was realized, with tool-center-point errors reaching 100 mm; increasing base-ground resistance during contact improved force realization and arrested further tool displacement, while base vibration and force-tracking error showed no consistent relationship under the tested conditions. The study was conducted by Zongyuan Zhang et al. and has been accepted to ACRA 2026.