Design of Autonomous Indoor Aerial Manipulator
Juntong Qi, Jinan Kang, Xiang Lu · 2018
An implementation of indoor autonomous aerial manipulator using a micro quadrotor and a single degree of freedom (DOF) gripper is proposed in this essay. The research extends the typical application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from passive monitoring and observation to proactive interaction with the surrounding environment. The main difficulty of aerial manipulator lies in precise positioning of aircraft, detection and manipulation of object, and stable control in the case of gripper movements. Positioning and Navigation in chamber environments is realized with the help of motion capture system that provides a real time position at the precision of millimeter. A single DOF gripper with passive mechanical compliance is employed for effective gripping. The Sigmoid function trajectory is planned in the ground station and sent to the flight platform. The system utilizes double closed loop PID controllers for attitude stabilization and navigation. Thus, the aerial manipulator is able to navigate, locate and perform operational tasks autonomously. Finally, we carry on hovering and grasping experiments to prove the feasibility of the system.