Passive Aligning Physical Interaction of Fully-Actuated Aerial Vehicles for Pushing Tasks

Tong Hui, Eugenio Cuniato, Michael Pantic, Marco Tognon, Matteo Fumagalli, Roland Siegwart

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingArticle in proceedingsResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Recently, the utilization of aerial manipulators for performing pushing tasks in non-destructive testing (NDT) applications has seen significant growth. Such operations entail physical interactions between the aerial robotic system and the environment. End-effectors with multiple contact points are often used for placing NDT sensors on the end-effector tip. Aligning the NDT sensor and the work surface during pushing arises the challenge of ensuring that all available contact points on the end-effector tip are in contact with the work surface. With a standard full-pose controller, attitude errors often occur due to perturbations caused by modeling uncertainties, sensor noise, and environmental uncertainties. Even small attitude errors can cause a loss of contact points between the endeffector tip and the work surface. To preserve full alignment amidst these uncertainties, we propose a control strategy which selectively deactivates angular motion control and enables direct force control in specific directions. In particular, we derive two essential conditions to be met, such that the robot can passively align with flat work surfaces achieving full alignment, leveraging its passive dynamics along non-actively controlled axes. Additionally, these conditions serve as hardware design and control guidelines for effectively integrating the proposed control method for practical usage. Real world experiments are conducted to validate both the control design and the guidelines.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of 2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
PublisherIEEE
Publication date2024
Pages6152-6158
ISBN (Print)979-8-3503-8458-1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Event2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation - Pacific Convention Plaza Yokohama, Yokohama, Japan
Duration: 13 May 202417 May 2024

Conference

Conference2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
LocationPacific Convention Plaza Yokohama
Country/TerritoryJapan
CityYokohama
Period13/05/202417/05/2024

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