A 3D-Printable Docking System for Aerial Robots: Controlling Aerial Robotic Manipulators in Outdoor Industrial Applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel design of a docking system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) which provides measurements of the position of the robot at high frequency. These measurements are used for controlling the aerial robot, enabling it to hover while it performs any kind of manipulation task in GPS denied industrial environments without causing the UAV to drift and putting into risk the platform and its environment. The novel tool is designed as end-effector of an arm preventing the aerial manipulator to collide while operating. A cascade controller is proposed to close the position loop. The prototype system is 3D printed in ABS. The paper presents outdoor experimental results. The accuracy of the system is evaluated against GPS, a state of art visual algorithm and a laser total station as a ground truth. The measurements obtained from the docking tool exceed a frequency of 1000 Hz which overtakes common localization algorithms.

Aerial Physical Interaction in Grabbing Conditions with Lightweight and Compliant Dual Arms

“…Two similar mechanisms have been proposed in previous works for estimating the pose of an aerial manipulator relative to a contact point. Reference [12] presents a docking tool consisting of an articulated arm with passive joints that is deployed over a pipe with a stiff-joint dual arm, whereas reference [25] relies on a passive spherical wrist joint and an IMU integrated at the end effector of a 3-DOF arm. In this paper, we combine the passive/active compliance methods for estimating the multirotor position while controlling the interaction force.…”

“…Not only that, but each of these technologies presents certain limitations relative to the operation range, accuracy, reliability, or the update rate. The docking system described in [12] is an alternative solution that exploits the proximity of the aerial platform to the workspace during the manipulation phase, using an articulated link for obtaining the relative position from the encoders of the joints.…”

Hecatonquiros: Open-source hardware for aerial manipulation applications

“…The last tool requires special consideration. The details of this tool are in the study by Ramon Soria et al 17 The main purpose is to provide the UAV for a relative localization system to control it at a certain position while performing an inspection or maintenance task. As the rest of the components, it has been designed to be lightweight.…”

Fixed‐time fault‐tolerant control of manipulator systems based on sliding mode observer

“…Manipulators are very common automation equipment in daily life, which is widely used in industrial production, 1 construction, medical and health, 2 aerospace, 3 deep sea exploration and other fields. Because of their good stability, and save manpower, they also have a significant impact on social and economic development.…”