Robot

Control (management)

Temperature control

Engineering

Robot manipulator

Aerospace engineering

Mobile manipulator

Multirotor

Marine engineering

Control engineering

Computer science

Mechanical engineering

PID controller

Manipulator (device)

Simulation

Mobile robot

Artificial intelligence

Engineering drawing

Control theory (sociology)

Thrust

Workspace

IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

We present the design, motion planning, and control of an aerial manipulator for non-trivial physical interaction tasks, such as pushing while sliding on curved surfaces-a task which is motivated by the increasing interest in autonomous non-destructive tests for industrial plants. The proposed aerial manipulator consists of a multidirectional-thrust aerial vehicle-to enhance physical interaction capabilities-endowed with a 2-DoFs lightweight arm-to enlarge its workspace. This combination makes it a trulyredundant manipulator going beyond standard aerial manipulators based on collinear multirotor platforms. The controller is based on a PID method with a “displaced” positional part that ensures asymptotic stability despite the arm elasticity. A kinodynamic task-constrained and control-aware global motion planner is used. Experiments show that the proposed aerial manipulator system, equipped with an Eddy current probe, is able to scan a metallic pipe sliding the sensor over its surface and preserving the contact. From the measures, a weld on the pipe is successfully detected and mapped.

A Truly-Redundant Aerial Manipulator System With Application to Push-and-Slide Inspection in Industrial Plants