Robotics: Science and Systems XV

An Omnidirectional Aerial Manipulation Platform for Contact-Based Inspection

Karen Bodie, Maximilian Brunner, Michael Pantic, Stefan Walser, Patrick Pfändler, Ueli Angst, Roland Siegwart, Juan Nieto

Abstract:

This paper presents an omnidirectional aerial manipulation platform for robust and responsive interaction with unstructured environments, toward the goal of contact-based inspection. The fully actuated tilt-rotor aerial system is equipped with a rigidly mounted end-effector, and is able to exert a 6 degree of freedom force and torque, decoupling the system's translational and rotational dynamics, and enabling precise interaction with the environment while maintaining stability. An impedance controller with selective apparent inertia is formulated to permit compliance in certain degrees of freedom while achieving precise trajectory tracking and disturbance rejection in others. Experiments demonstrate disturbance rejection, push-and-slide interaction, and on-board state estimation with depth servoing to interact with local surfaces. The system is also validated as a tool for contact-based non-destructive testing of concrete infrastructure.

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Bibtex:

  
@INPROCEEDINGS{Nieto-RSS-19, 
    AUTHOR    = {Karen Bodie AND Maximilian Brunner AND Michael Pantic AND Stefan Walser AND Patrick Pfändler AND Ueli Angst AND Roland Siegwart AND Juan Nieto}, 
    TITLE     = {An Omnidirectional Aerial Manipulation Platform for Contact-Based Inspection}, 
    BOOKTITLE = {Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems}, 
    YEAR      = {2019}, 
    ADDRESS   = {FreiburgimBreisgau, Germany}, 
    MONTH     = {June}, 
    DOI       = {10.15607/RSS.2019.XV.019} 
}