A Robotic Aerial Platform with Functionally Anthropomorphic Arms designed for Physical Interaction

Kong, Fanyi; Monteleone, Simone; Grioli, Giorgio; Catalano, Manuel G.; Bicchi, Antonio

doi:10.1109/iros47612.2022.9981910

Cited by 1 publication

(3 citation statements)

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“…The combination of the constraining components creates an activity space which allows the platform to translate within a cylindrical space with radius r ≈ 4.7 cm and height h ≈ 17 cm, while allowing a rotation of up to ∆φ = ∆θ ≈ ±30 • for pitch and roll, and ∆ψ = ±360 • for yaw. More details about the design of the test rig can be found in [36].…”

Section: A Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our previous work [27], on which this manuscript is partially based, we have introduced a novel design of a hexacopter equipped with an anthropomorphic torso comprising two soft-articulated 5-DoF arms, two softhands, and a 2-DoF head. A notable innovation in the arm design has been introduced, involving the integration of tendons and elastic bands.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, we extend [27] by integrating the aerial platform design with a variable-length suspension mechanism for weight compensation (see Fig. 1), effectively making it a Suspended Aerial Manipulation Avatar (SAM-A).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Suspended Aerial Manipulation Avatar for Physical Interaction in Unstructured Environments

Kong,

Zambella,

Monteleone

et al. 2024

IEEE Access

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This paper presents an aerial platform capable of performing physically interactive tasks in unstructured environments with human-like dexterity under human supervision. This aerial platform consists of a humanoid torso attached to a hexacopter. A two-degree-of-freedom head and two five-degree-of-freedom arms equipped with softhands provide the requisite dexterity to allow human operators to carry out various tasks. A robust tendon-driven structure is purposefully designed for the arms, considerably reducing the impact of arm inertia on the floating base in motion. In addition, tendons provide flexibility to the joints, which enhances the robustness of the arm preventing damage in interaction with the environment. To increase the payload of the aerial system and the battery life, we use the concept of Suspended Aerial Manipulation, i.e., the flying humanoid can be connected with a tether to a structure, e.g., a building, a fixed bracket, a supporting crane, or a larger airborne carrier. Importantly, to maximize portability and applicability, we adopt a modular approach exploiting commercial components for the aerial base hardware and autopilot, while developing an outer stabilizing control loop to maintain the attitude, compensating for the tether force and for the humanoid head and arm motions. The humanoid can be controlled by a remote operator, thus effectively realizing a Suspended Aerial Manipulation Avatar. The proposed system is validated through experiments in indoor scenarios reproducing post-disaster tasks.INDEX TERMS Aerial manipulation, dual-arm robot, teleoperated avatar, cable-suspended robot.

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Section: A Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%