Reaching high or inaccessible areas can be challenging, dangerous, or inefficient for human workers, even with appropriate equipment. Aerial vehicles have become a well-established solution, offering reliability, customizability, and scalability. Unlike ground vehicles, they have the advantage of a larger operational workspace. However, their effectiveness is limited by the absence of dexterous tools that would enable to physically manipulate the environment. Tasks such as pick-and-place operations, surface monitoring, and other contact-based activities require a "dexterity tool" that should be rigidly attached under the drone. For example, this tool can span from a static perch to a robotic manipulator. While the former has the main advantage to not significantly increase the robot weight, it does not introduce any additional degrees of freedom, that would allow the drone to perform a task in different ways, optimizing criteria such as manipulability. For this reason, the objective of this thesis relies in the conception and the control of a custom-designed robotic arm, specifically designed for aerial vehicles. We reason for a custom-design arm is due to the lack of commercially-available solutions in the market, since the existing manipulators are often bulky, energy-intensive. On the control side, while grounded manipulators often prioritize kinematic control over dynamic modeling, tasks involving environmental interaction or complex systems necessitate the control at the dynamic level. This is crucial for accurately predicting and controlling system behavior during contact tasks. In summary, this thesis focuses on the modeling and control of a lightweight manipulator, specifically designed for drones, with particular attention to deriving an accurate dynamic model. Experimental validation is conducted using a custom-built robotic arm designed to be mounted on a hexa-rotor drone.
Modeling, identification, and control of a robotic arm for aerial manipulation
DE FACCI, MATTEO
2023/2024
Abstract
Reaching high or inaccessible areas can be challenging, dangerous, or inefficient for human workers, even with appropriate equipment. Aerial vehicles have become a well-established solution, offering reliability, customizability, and scalability. Unlike ground vehicles, they have the advantage of a larger operational workspace. However, their effectiveness is limited by the absence of dexterous tools that would enable to physically manipulate the environment. Tasks such as pick-and-place operations, surface monitoring, and other contact-based activities require a "dexterity tool" that should be rigidly attached under the drone. For example, this tool can span from a static perch to a robotic manipulator. While the former has the main advantage to not significantly increase the robot weight, it does not introduce any additional degrees of freedom, that would allow the drone to perform a task in different ways, optimizing criteria such as manipulability. For this reason, the objective of this thesis relies in the conception and the control of a custom-designed robotic arm, specifically designed for aerial vehicles. We reason for a custom-design arm is due to the lack of commercially-available solutions in the market, since the existing manipulators are often bulky, energy-intensive. On the control side, while grounded manipulators often prioritize kinematic control over dynamic modeling, tasks involving environmental interaction or complex systems necessitate the control at the dynamic level. This is crucial for accurately predicting and controlling system behavior during contact tasks. In summary, this thesis focuses on the modeling and control of a lightweight manipulator, specifically designed for drones, with particular attention to deriving an accurate dynamic model. Experimental validation is conducted using a custom-built robotic arm designed to be mounted on a hexa-rotor drone.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12608/77005