Toward Aerial Physical Locomotion: The Contact-Fly-Contact Problem

Abstract

In this paper we consider the problem of letting an aerial robot exploiting its contact with the environment in order to enhance its motion possibilities, in a way reminiscent of legged robots exploiting contact forces for locomotion purposes. As a representative and initial case study, we consider a quadrotor equipped with a 1-DOF arm able to hook at some pivot points, and needing to perform a maneuver from an initial hooked configuration to a final hooked configuration while passing though a free-flight phase between the two anchor points. To this end, we propose a dynamical modeling able to capture the various phases (hooked, free-flying) together with an optimization framework for generating optimal motion plans compatible with actuation constraints. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the approach and the promising potential in terms of more advanced maneuvers.

Vertical surface contact with a Micro Air Vehicle

“…Unfortunately, these studies focus on the problem of coupling the manipulator on the flying system, and the mass distribution, but the wall effect, and the full contact disturbance are not discussed in these implementations. In Delamare et al., 8 the discussion of the interaction forces of an aerial manipulator and the disturbances induced by the surrounding objects is presented with simulation results. One of the initial implementations in which the arm disturbance and the contact are considered are presented in Kocer et al.…”

“…Some relevant implementations for the active interaction with environment use of UAVs are presented in Delamare et al., 8 Eren et al., 9 Jimenez-Cano et al., 10,11 Liang et al., 12 and Nguyen et al. 13 The dynamic properties of UAVs with attached-lower-side manipulators are similar to a pendulum, which causes disturbance on each task developed.…”

“…13 The dynamic properties of UAVs with attached-lower-side manipulators are similar to a pendulum, which causes disturbance on each task developed. For instance, in Delamare et al., 8 an UAV system is designed to hook itself to some anchor points on the ceiling. The presented study is promising, but the reported result is restricted only in a simulation environment; also, the problem of bringing near a drone to a ceiling is different from a vertical wall.…”

“…15–17 Although aerodynamic effects are mentioned in some works, most of them treat these interactions as small disturbances, in which the stability control must compensate using feedback. 8,14,18 One of the most mentioned aerodynamic actions is the wall effect, which is a disturbance caused by the air of the rotors bounced in the wall. For full contact with a surface, wall contact must be considered in the stability control.…”

Inspection-while-flying: An autonomous contact-based nondestructive test using UAV-tools

“…In this implementation, the discussion on the contact forces and the inspection are not presented. A similar implementation to hang the UAV at some anchor points is presented in [40,41,42]. In order to inspect the ceiling, a PID control scheme is considered in [43] for a robotic arm attached on the UAV.…”