  The logistics of transporting a package from a storage facility to the
consumer's front door usually employs highly specialized robots often times
splitting sub-tasks up to different systems, e.g., manipulator arms to sort and
wheeled vehicles to deliver. More recent endeavors attempt to have a unified
approach with legged and humanoid robots. These solutions, however, occupy
large amounts of space thus reducing the number of packages that can fit into a
delivery vehicle. As a result, these bulky robotic systems often reduce the
potential for scalability and task parallelization. In this paper, we introduce
LIMMS (Latching Intelligent Modular Mobility System) to address both the
manipulation and delivery portion of a typical last-mile delivery while
maintaining a minimal spatial footprint. LIMMS is a symmetrically designed, 6
degree of freedom (DoF) appendage-like robot with wheels and latching
mechanisms at both ends. By latching onto a surface and anchoring at one end,
LIMMS can function as a traditional 6-DoF manipulator arm. On the other hand,
multiple LIMMS can latch onto a single box and behave like a legged robotic
system where the package is the body. During transit, LIMMS folds up compactly
and takes up much less space compared to traditional robotic systems. A large
group of LIMMS units can fit inside of a single delivery vehicle, opening the
potential for new delivery optimization and hybrid planning methods never done
before. In this paper, the feasibility of LIMMS is studied and presented using
a hardware prototype as well as simulation results for a range of sub-tasks in
a typical last-mile delivery.
