Abstract
This article focuses on the modeling and controlling of Unmanned Aerial Manipulators (UAMs) in a leader/follower configuration performing a cooperative manipulation task. Each UAM consists of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with an attached serial-link robotic manipulator. The Recursive Newton-Euler dynamics formulation is employed to account for the interaction between the UAV and its manipulator. The overall system consists of a couple UAMs with a carrying load. The coupling between these systems is due to the exerted forces by their manipulators through the object characterized by its stiffness matrix. A leader/follower control scheme is employed with a stability-analysis tailored to the UAM-pair. The leader UAM defines the trajectory of the moving object while the follower acts so as to reduce the system’s internal reaction forces. Simulation studies are employed to validate the controller’s performance while comparing the system’s response against that derived from a classical nonlinear tracking controller.
Highlights
The adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has expanded the research applications in several fields, spanning from surveillance and filming to aerial manipulation, in which UAVs equipped with manipulators interact with the infrastructure
The computation of the Recursive Newton-Euler (RNE) provides us with the forces and torques that are applied to the UAV due to the interconnection with the manipulator
The carried manipulator is controlled using a feedback linearization scheme to track the reference trajectory, while a modified Proportional-Derivative (PD) controller accounting for the total mass mlt of the leader Unmanned Aerial Manipulators (UAMs) and its applied forces is employed for the leader UAV
Summary
The adoption of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has expanded the research applications in several fields, spanning from surveillance and filming to aerial manipulation, in which UAVs equipped with manipulators interact with the infrastructure. These UAMs can be considered mechanically coupled, since there are reaction forces and torques transferred from their manipulators in a similar manner as in [30].
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