Towards an Adaptive-Compliance Aerial Manipulator for Contact- Based Interaction

Abstract

As roles for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continue to diversify, the ability to sense and interact closely with the environment becomes increasingly important. Within this paper we report on the initial flight tests of a novel adaptively compliant actuator which will allow a UAV to carry out such tasks as the "pick and placement" of remote sensors, structural testing and contact-based inspection. Three key results are discussed and presented; the ability to physically apply forces with the UAV through the use of an active compliant manipulator; the ability to tailor these forces through tuning of the manipulator controller gains; and the ability to apply a rapid series of physical pulses in order to excite remotely placed sensors, e.g. vibration sensors. A series of over sixty flight tests have been used to generate initial results which clearly demonstrate the potential of this new type of compliant aerial actuator.

Design, modeling, and control of an aerial manipulator for placement and retrieval of sensors in the environment

“…It is demonstrated how high forces deriving from an impact are effectively absorbed by the on‐board compliant manipulator and the resulting kinetic energy is stored within the spring element of the manipulator itself. In Hamaza, Georgilas, and Richardson (2018) a UAV equipped with a 2‐DoF manipulator featuring active variable compliance can adjust the output force on a vertical wall by tuning the manipulator's controller gains. This allowed the AM to tailor the force at the end‐effector following a task‐specific outcome.…”

POSITRON: lightweight active positioning compliant joints robotic arm in power lines inspection

“…This section introduces the design and characteristic of the manipulator, which is inspired in the implementation made by UFACTORY 2 .…”

“…Authors in [2] developed a novel control system to stabilize a UAV which actively pushes a wall using a pole. Similarly, in [3] the authors developed a new platform capable of remain stuck on concrete beams by taking advantage of the manuperezj@gmail.com, marrcogrova@gmail.com, pabramsor@gmail.com, barrue@us.es, aollero@us.es ceiling effect in UAVs.…”

2D Contour Following with an Unmanned Aerial Manipulator: Towards Tactile-Based Aerial Navigation

“…These control approaches demonstrate force estimation and motion feedback at the end-effector, improving stable contact during aerial interaction [4]- [7]. In our previous work [8], [9], compliance was introduced in the aerial system in the form of a variable-gain controller for the manipulator, while keeping a standalone flight controller on the aerial platform. Results demonstrated that by adapting the manipulator control gains, the dynamic response of the system as a whole changed and different output forces were generated at the end-effector, allowing us to fine-tune the overall compliant behaviour.…”