Abstract
Conventionally, aerial manipulators, when used for inspection, use drone rotors to stabilize the center of gravity (CoG) shifts, which highly affects its performance. This paper discusses the development of a self-balancing lightweight cable aerial manipulator that can be used for construction inspection purposes. The design is based on a 3D-printed, three degrees of freedom (DoF), planar cable manipulator that is mounted on an extended platform below it as a counter-balance mechanism. The actuators control the manipulator links through a cable system, allowing them to be mounted at the system base to reduce the moving mass of the manipulator during operation. The counter-balance mechanism compensates for any shifts in the CoG of the system by actively sliding a counter-balance weight, mainly a battery, which powers the setup. This mechanism can be attached beneath an off-the-shelf quadrotor to solve the problem of CoG shifts. CoG shifts are due to the manipulator operation when a payload or inspection tool is attached to the end effector to perform a given task. For construction integrity inspection, the aerial manipulator must remain stable during the push or slide processes on both flat and curved surfaces while the non-destructive tests are carried out. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed design, an experimental setup was used, and comparisons were made between the compensated and uncompensated tilt angles of the aerial manipulator. Significant tilt angle reductions were observed with an average of 94.69% improvement, undergoing different manipulator motions during different operation scenarios, as a result of an active compensation of the CoG shift and lightweight design of the system, without sacrificing the functionality of the manipulator for the task.
Highlights
For structural integrity assessments, especially in construction and oil and gas sectors, frequent non-destructive testing (NDT) must be carried out to monitor and effectively assess the status of various parts of a structure
This paper proposes a lightweight design of a cable aerial manipulator with a center of gravity (CoG) shift compensation mechanism that can be used for construction inspection purposes, such as in controller
The design, integration, and testing of a lightweight cable aerial manipulation system for use in structural inspections is proposed, with the purpose of reducing the load on the motors during inspection that results from a shift in the CoG. This is done by developing a CoG compensation mechanism, as well as minimizing the overall weight
Summary
Especially in construction and oil and gas sectors, frequent non-destructive testing (NDT) must be carried out to monitor and effectively assess the status of various parts of a structure. A solution proposed in [8] utilized a slider that moved the entire manipulator in a direction opposite to the arm motion This solution, while being lightweight and compact, is not suitable for construction inspection where the manipulator’s end-effector must remain stationary. The purpose of this design is to overcome some of the aforementioned challenges faced by aerial manipulators in construction.
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