Abstract
This paper presents the design and development of a winged aerial robot with bimanual manipulation capabilities, motivated by the current limitations of aerial manipulators based on multirotor platforms in terms of safety and range/endurance. Since the combination of gliding and flapping wings is more energy efficient in forward flight, we propose a new morphology that exploits this feature and allows the realization of dexterous manipulation tasks once the aerial robot has landed or perched. The paper describes the design, development, and aerodynamic analysis of this winged aerial manipulation robot (WAMR), consisting of a small-scale dual arm used for manipulating and as a morphing wing. The arms, fuselage, and tail are covered by a nylon cloth that acts as a cap, similar to a kite. The three joints of the arms (shoulder yaw and pitch, elbow pitch) can be used to control the surface area and orientation and thus the aerodynamic wrenches induced over the cloth. The proposed concept design is extended to a flapping-wing aerial robot built with smart servo actuators and a similar frame structure, allowing the generation of different flapping patterns exploiting the embedded servo controller. Experimental and simulation results carried out with these two prototypes evaluate the manipulation capability and the possibility of gliding and flying.
Highlights
Winged aerial manipulation robots (WAMR) represent the evolution of aerial manipulators based on multirotor platforms [1,2,3,4,5], proposing the integration of lightweight robotic arms in fixed or flapping wing aircrafts [6,7] in order to increase the range and endurance of inspection and maintenance operations in remote areas or large scenarios such as refineries [8,9], solar plants, power lines [10], or wind turbines [11]
The potential applications of winged aerial manipulation robots are determined by their features and capabilities, indicated in Table 2 and compared with respect to the aerial manipulators built with multirotor platforms [5,22]
As in [25], this subsection presents simulation results to study the aerodynamic behavior of the winged aerial manipulation robot
Summary
Winged aerial manipulation robots (WAMR) represent the evolution of aerial manipulators based on multirotor platforms [1,2,3,4,5], proposing the integration of lightweight robotic arms in fixed or flapping wing aircrafts [6,7] in order to increase the range and endurance of inspection and maintenance operations in remote areas or large scenarios such as refineries [8,9], solar plants, power lines [10], or wind turbines [11]. Vertical take-off and landing platforms like multirotors or helicopters have been extensively used in aerial manipulation due to their high maneuverability and ability to operate in hovering conditions [12,13]. Multirotors are not energy efficient platforms for long distance/endurance operations, since most of the energy is devoted to lifting their own weight, whereas a fixed or flapping wing vehicle takes advantage of the aerodynamic lift forces generated during forward flight [14,15]. Related to this last point, multirotors are not suitable platforms for close interaction with humans, in terms of safety, due to the propellers [19], whereas the damage that a flapping wing vehicle may cause is relatively low
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