Aerial Manipulator with Door Opening Function

In this paper a novel aerial manipulation system is proposed. The mechanical structure of the system, the number of thrusters and their geometry will be derived from technical optimization problems. The aforementioned problems are defined by taking into consideration the desired actuation forces and torques applied to the end-effector of the system. The framework of the proposed system is designed in a CAD Package in order to evaluate the system parameter values. Following this, the kinematic and dynamic models are developed and an adaptive backstepping controller is designed aiming to control the exact position and orientation of the end-effector in the Cartesian space. Finally, the performance of the system is demonstrated through a simulation study, where a manipulation task scenario is investigated.

2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2019

This paper presents a novel manipulator for aerial vehicles to perform grasping and manipulation tasks. The goal is to design a low-cost, relatively light but strong manipulator with a large workspace and compact storage space that can be mounted on an unmanned aerial system. A novel design solution based on the Spiral Zipper, an expanding tube, combined with tether actuators is presented. A model of the system is introduced and the control method and pose estimator are developed and tested with some experiments showing the reliable performance of the overall system. An experiment with a self-sealing suction cup gripper demonstrates manipulation while mounted on the aerial vehicle frame.

2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2013

In this paper we describe a system for aerial manipulation composed of a helicopter platform and a fully actuated seven Degree of Freedom (DoF) redundant industrial robotic arm. We present the first analysis of such kind of systems and show that the dynamic coupling between helicopter and arm can generate diverging oscillations with very slow frequency which we called phase circles. Based on the presented analysis, we propose a control approach for the whole system. The partial decoupling between helicopter and arm -which eliminates the phase circles -is achieved by means of special movement of robotic arm utilizing its redundant DoF. For the underlying arm control a specially designed impedance controller was proposed. In different flight experiments we showcase that the proposed kind of system type might be used in the future for practically relevant tasks. In an integrated experiment we demonstrate a basic manipulation task -impedance based grasping of an object from the environment underlaying a visual object tracking control loop.

A wide array of potential applications exist for robots that have the level of mobility offered by flight. The military applications of aerial robotics have been recognized ever since the beginnings of powered flight, and they have already been realized to sometimes spectacular effect in surveillance, targeting, and even strike missions. The range of civilian applications is even greater and includes remote sensing, disaster response, image acquisition, surveillance, transportation, and delivery of goods. This chapter first presents a brief history of aerial robotics. It then continues by describing the range of possible and actual applications of aerial robotics. The list of current challenges to aerial robotics is then described.

2014

The goals of this flying robot are to provide an accurate and precise search, rescue, exploration and saving of accident victims and also to reduce rescue time constraint. The major task in designing this robot is able to recognize the human body figure and detect the temperature of human body while searching the victim. At first, the design of robot’s body will use base on coaxial helicopter. After that, system and recognition of human body figure system which uses the machine vision knowledge. Moreover, obstacles avoidance system, navigation system and flight level measurement system, communication system and temperature measurement system also included.

2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, 2011

In this paper, a new tethered aerial robot for maneuvering around the buildings for an urban search and rescue (USAR) mission is introduced. The robot can enter from a hatch in order to search the indoor area of a collapsed house or maneuver around a building for search and rescue. This new mechanism is composed of an airship as a flying and hovering platform, and a Small Aerial Vehicle (SAV) as a high maneuverable robot. A light weight tether, which is strong enough, is used to connect the airship and the SAV. The airship transports the tethered SAV (T-SAV) to the desired location, lowers it and then supports it to gather information, using his high maneuverability. In contrast to other proposed platforms, this robot operates with very low noise, making it suitable for search and rescue missions to avoid drown out victims' low voice. Moreover, the robot's actuator's vibrations are weak enough to avoid the occurrence of another collapse. This paper explains the design, modeling and controlling of the T-SAV. Finally, the first prototype of the T-SAV is explained.

Mechatronics, 2018

This paper presents the development and experimental validation of a low weight and inertia, human-size and highly dexterous dual arm system designed for aerial manipulation with multirotor platform. The arms, weighting 1.8 kg in total and with a maximum lift load per arm around 0.75 kg, provide five degrees of freedom (DOF) for end-effector positioning and wrist orientation. A customized aluminium frame structure supports the servo actuators, placing most part of the mass close to the shoulder structure in order to reduce the inertia. A double flange bearing mechanism in side-by-side configuration isolates the servos from impacts and radial/axial overloads, increasing robustness. This is important to prevent that the arms are damaged during physical interactions with the environment, as they should support the kinetic energy of the whole platform. The motivation in the development of a dual arm aerial manipulator is extending the range of applications and tasks that can be performed with respect to the single arm case, like grasping large objects or assembling. The paper covers the kinematic and dynamic modelling of the aerial robot, proposing a control scheme that deals with the technological limitations of the smart servo actuators. The performance of the arms and the interactions with the aerial platform are evaluated in test bench experiments. The proposed dual arm design is validated through outdoor flight tests with two commercial hexarotor platforms equipped with standard industrial autopilots.

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2018

Aerial manipulation aims at combining the versatility and the agility of some aerial platforms with the manipulation capabilities of robotic arms. This letter tries to collect the results reached by the research community so far within the field of aerial manipulation, especially from the technological and control point of view. A brief literature review of general aerial robotics and space manipulation is carried out as well.

IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica, 2019

To date, many studies related to robots have been performed around the world. Many of these studies have assumed operation at locations where entry is difficult, such as disaster sites, and have focused on various terrestrial robots, such as snake-like, humanoid, spider-type, and wheeled units. Another area of active research in recent years has been aerial robots with small helicopters for operation indoors and outdoors. However, less research has been performed on robots that operate both on the ground and in the air. Accordingly, in this paper, we propose a hybrid aerial/terrestrial robot system. The proposed robot system was developed by equipping a quadcopter with a mechanism for ground movement. It does not use power dedicated to ground movement, and instead uses the flight mechanism of the quadcopter to achieve ground movement as well. Furthermore, we addressed the issue of obstacle avoidance as part of studies on autonomous control. Thus, we found that autonomous control of ground movement and flight was possible for the hybrid aerial/terrestrial robot system, as was autonomous obstacle avoidance by flight when an obstacle appeared during ground movement.

2020

The scope of this chapter is the development of an aerial manipulator platform using an octarotor drone with an attached manipulator. An on-board spherical camera provides visual information for the drone’s surroundings, while a Pan-Tilt-Zoom camera system is used to track targets. A powerful computer with a GPU offers significant on-board computational power for the visual servoing of the aerial manipulator system. This vision system, along with the Inertial Management Unit based controller provides exemplary guidance in confined and outdoor spaces. Coupled with the manipulator’s force sensing capabilities the system can interact with the environment. This aerial manipulation system is modular as far as attaching various payloads depending on the application (i.e., environmental sensing, facade cleaning and others, aerial netting for evader-drone geofencing, and others). Experimental studies using a motion capture system are offered to validate the system’s efficiency.