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Proceedings ArticleDOI

Design, modeling and control of an omni-directional aerial vehicle

16 May 2016-pp 3261-3266
TL;DR: An eight-rotor configuration is derived that maximizes the vehicle's agility in any direction and possesses full force and torque authority in all three dimensions of the proposed six degrees-of-freedom aerial vehicle.
Abstract: In this paper we present the design and control of a novel six degrees-of-freedom aerial vehicle. Based on a static force and torque analysis for generic actuator configurations, we derive an eight-rotor configuration that maximizes the vehicle's agility in any direction. The proposed vehicle design possesses full force and torque authority in all three dimensions. A control strategy that allows for exploiting the vehicle's decoupled translational and rotational dynamics is introduced. A prototype of the proposed vehicle design is built using reversible motor-propeller actuators and capable of flying at any orientation. Preliminary experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the novel design and the capabilities of the vehicle.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 2019
TL;DR: This work proposes a novel, simpler, yet effective morphing design for quadrotors consisting of a frame with four independently rotating arms that fold around the main frame and demonstrates the first work showing stable flight without requiring any symmetry of the morphology.
Abstract: The recent advances in state estimation, perception, and navigation algorithms have significantly contributed to the ubiquitous use of quadrotors for inspection, mapping, and aerial imaging. To further increase the versatility of quadrotors, recent works investigated the use of an adaptive morphology, which consists of modifying the shape of the vehicle during flight to suit a specific task or environment. However, these works either increase the complexity of the platform or decrease its controllability. In this letter, we propose a novel, simpler, yet effective morphing design for quadrotors consisting of a frame with four independently rotating arms that fold around the main frame. To guarantee stable flight at all times, we exploit an optimal control strategy that adapts on the fly to the drone morphology. We demonstrate the versatility of the proposed adaptive morphology in different tasks, such as negotiation of narrow gaps, close inspection of vertical surfaces, and object grasping and transportation. The experiments are performed on an actual, fully autonomous quadrotor relying solely on onboard visual-inertial sensors and compute. No external motion tracking systems and computers are used. This is the first work showing stable flight without requiring any symmetry of the morphology.

205 citations


Cites methods from "Design, modeling and control of an ..."

  • ...The optimization of the relative orientation of the propellers [7] or the use of tiltable rotors have been investigated to increase the...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Voliro is presented, a novel aerial platform that combines the advantages of existing multirotor systems with the agility of vehicles having omniorientational controllability, so that Voliro can fly in any direction while maintaining an arbitrary orientation.
Abstract: Extending the maneuverability of multirotors promises to yield a considerable increase in their scope of applications, such as carrying out more challenging inspection tasks and generating complex, uninterrupted movements of an attached camera. In this article, we address the promise of multirotor maneuverability by presenting Voliro, a novel aerial platform that combines the advantages of existing multirotor systems with the agility of vehicles having omniorientational controllability. In other words, Voliro can fly in any direction while maintaining an arbitrary orientation.

168 citations


Cites methods from "Design, modeling and control of an ..."

  • ...The Omnicopter presented in [11] uses intelligent rotor placement in a cube-like structure to generate forces and torques in any direction....

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Proceedings ArticleDOI
28 Nov 2016
TL;DR: FAST-Hex is presented, a novel UAV concept which is able to smoothly change its configuration from underactuated to fully actuated by using only one additional motor that tilts all propellers at the same time, and a novel full-pose geometric controller for generic multi-rotors that outperforms classical inverse dynamics approaches.
Abstract: We present FAST-Hex, a novel UAV concept which is able to smoothly change its configuration from underactuated to fully actuated by using only one additional motor that tilts all propellers at the same time. FAST-Hex can adapt to the task at hand by finely tuning its configuration from the efficient (but underactuated) flight (typical of coplanar multi-rotor platforms) to the full-pose-tracking (but less efficient) flight, which is attainable by non-coplanar multi-rotors. We also introduce a novel full-pose geometric controller for generic multi-rotors (not only the FAST-Hex) that outperforms classical inverse dynamics approaches. The controller receives as input any reference pose in ℝ3×SO(3) (3D position + 3D orientation). Exact tracking is achieved if the reference pose is feasible with respect to the propeller spinning rate saturations. In case of unfeasibility a new feasible desired trajectory is generated online giving priority to the positional part. The new controller is tested with the FAST-Hex but can be used for many other multi-rotor platforms: underactuated, slightly fully-actuated and completely fully-actuated.

149 citations


Cites background from "Design, modeling and control of an ..."

  • ...Therefore, from this point of view, the FAST-Hex clearly outperforms fixed non-coplanar multi-rotors [4], [6], [9], [12]....

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  • ..., a decoupled tracking of a desired 3D position and 3D orientation [6]–[12]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
Moju Zhao1, Tomoki Anzai1, Fan Shi1, Xiangyu Chen1, Kei Okada1, Masayuki Inaba1 
15 Jan 2018
TL;DR: A novel transformable aerial robot called DRAGON, which is a dual-rotor-embedded multilink robot with the ability of multi-degree-of-freedom (DoF) aerial transformation, is introduced.
Abstract: In this letter, we introduce a novel transformable aerial robot called DRAGON, which is a dual-rotor-embedded multilink robot with the ability of multi-degree-of-freedom (DoF) aerial transformation. The new aerial robot can control the full pose in $\mathsf {SE}(3)$ regarding the center of gravity (CoG) of multilinks and can render the multi-DoF aerial transformation, which is accomplished by the original two-DoF force vectoring mechanism on each link called the dual-rotor gimbal module. The dynamics is derived on the basis of the special definition of CoG orientation, followed by a control method decoupled into thrust force control and rotor gimbal control. In the thrust force control, the minimum force norm is considered to avoid force saturation, and the rotor gimbal control method is developed to enhance both translational and rotational stabilities during hovering and large-scale aerial transformation. The prototype composed of four links is constructed, and associated preliminary experiments are performed. The feasibility of the novel mechanical design and the proposed control method for the aerial transformation is demonstrated.

133 citations


Cites background or methods from "Design, modeling and control of an ..."

  • ..., [6], [7], [17]); b) each rotor module actuated by a single servo motor to achieve 1DoF tilting (e....

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  • ...For instance, different omni-directional aerial robots have been achieved with the optimized rotor configuration to maximize either the agility [6] or the control wrench [7] at an arbitrary pose....

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Proceedings ArticleDOI
29 May 2017
TL;DR: An extensive experimental campaign shows that the Tilt-Hex is able to outperform the classical underactuated multi-rotors in terms of stability, accuracy and dexterity and represent one of the best choice at date for tasks requiring aerial physical interaction.
Abstract: This paper presents the design, control, and experimental validation of a novel fully-actuated aerial robot for physically interactive tasks, named Tilt-Hex. We show how the Tilt-Hex, a tilted-propeller hexarotor is able to control the full pose (position and orientation independently) using a geometric control, and to exert a full-wrench (force and torque independently) with a rigidly attached end-effector using an admittance control paradigm. An outer loop control governs the desired admittance behavior and an inner loop based on geometric control ensures pose tracking. The interaction forces are estimated by a momentum based observer. Control and observation are made possible by a precise control and measurement of the speed of each propeller. An extensive experimental campaign shows that the Tilt-Hex is able to outperform the classical underactuated multi-rotors in terms of stability, accuracy and dexterity and represent one of the best choice at date for tasks requiring aerial physical interaction.

132 citations

References
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Book
01 Jan 1971
TL;DR: In this article, the authors define and define the definitions and theorems of group theory and symmetry groups, and present a mathematical model of symmetry groups for Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds.
Abstract: PRINCIPLES. Definitions and Theorems of Group Theory. Molecular Symmetry and the Symmetry Groups. Representations of Groups. Group Theory and Quantum Mechanics. Symmetry-Adapted Linear Combinations. APPLICATIONS. Molecular Orbital Theory and Its Applications in Organic Chemistry. Molecular Orbital Theory for Inorganic and Organometallic Compounds. Ligand Field Theory. Molecular Vibrations. Crystallographic Symmetry. Appendices. Index.

1,242 citations


"Design, modeling and control of an ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Points which satisfy this are the vertices of regular solids of which the smallest three sets of points are the vertices of a regular tetrahedron (N = 4), the vertices of a regular octahedron (N = 6) and the vertices two arbitrary aligned regular tetrahedra whose centers coincide (N = 8) [16]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
Marc Bodson1
TL;DR: The major conclusion is that constrained optimization can be performed with computational requirements that fall within an order of magnitude of those of simpler methods.
Abstract: The performanceand computational requirements ofoptimization methodsfor control allocation areevaluated Two control allocation problems are formulated: a direct allocation method that preserves the directionality of the moment and a mixed optimization method that minimizes the error between the desired and the achieved momentsaswellasthecontroleffortTheconstrainedoptimizationproblemsaretransformedinto linearprograms so that they can be solved using well-tried linear programming techniques such as the simplex algorithm A variety of techniques that can be applied for the solution of the control allocation problem in order to accelerate computations are discussed Performance and computational requirements are evaluated using aircraft models with different numbers of actuators and with different properties In addition to the two optimization methods, three algorithms with low computational requirements are also implemented for comparison: a redistributed pseudoinverse technique, a quadratic programming algorithm, and a e xed-point method The major conclusion is that constrained optimization can be performed with computational requirements that fall within an order of magnitude of those of simpler methods The performance gains of optimization methods, measured in terms of the error between the desired and achieved moments, are found to be small on the average but sometimes signie cantAvariety ofissuesthataffecttheimplementation ofthevariousalgorithmsin ae ight-controlsystem are discussed

628 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
26 May 2015
TL;DR: A novel, deeply embedded robotics middleware and programming environment that uses a multithreaded, publish-subscribe design pattern and provides a Unix-like software interface for micro controller applications, which is well suited for fast, high rate control tasks.
Abstract: We present a novel, deeply embedded robotics middleware and programming environment. It uses a multithreaded, publish-subscribe design pattern and provides a Unix-like software interface for micro controller applications. We improve over the state of the art in deeply embedded open source systems by providing a modular and standards-oriented platform. Our system architecture is centered around a publish-subscribe object request broker on top of a POSIX application programming interface. This allows to reuse common Unix knowledge and experience, including a bash-like shell. We demonstrate with a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) use case that the system modularity is well suited for novel and experimental vehicle platforms. We also show how the system architecture allows a direct interface to ROS and to run individual processes either as native ROS nodes on Linux or nodes on the micro controller, maximizing interoperability. Our microcontroller-based execution environment has substantially lower latency and better hardware connectivity than a typical Robotics Linux system and is therefore well suited for fast, high rate control tasks.

509 citations

Proceedings ArticleDOI
05 Dec 2011
TL;DR: This paper presents the design of several light-weight, low-complexity grippers that allow quadrotors to grasp and perch on branches or beams and pick up and transport payloads and shows the robot's ability to estimate the mass, the location of the center of mass and the moments of inertia to improve tracking performance.
Abstract: This paper addresses mechanics, design, estimation and control for aerial grasping. We present the design of several light-weight, low-complexity grippers that allow quadrotors to grasp and perch on branches or beams and pick up and transport payloads. We then show how the robot can use rigid body dynamic models and sensing to verify a grasp, to estimate the the inertial parameters of the grasped object, and to adapt the controller and improve performance during flight. We present experimental results with different grippers and different payloads and show the robot's ability to estimate the mass, the location of the center of mass and the moments of inertia to improve tracking performance.

398 citations


"Design, modeling and control of an ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…several groups have more recently started to investigate the use of flying machines for physical interaction with the environment; to manipulate objects (e.g. [1]–[3]), to assemble structures in locations otherwise inaccessible (e.g. [4]), or to interact with humans and augment reality (e.g.…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work proposes a quaternion-based hybrid feedback scheme that solves the global attitude tracking problem in three scenarios: full state measurements, only measurements of attitude, and measurements of attitudes with angular velocity measurements corrupted by a constant bias.
Abstract: It is well known that controlling the attitude of a rigid body is subject to topological constraints. We illustrate, with examples, the problems that arise when using continuous and (memoryless) discontinuous quaternion-based state-feedback control laws for global attitude stabilization. We propose a quaternion-based hybrid feedback scheme that solves the global attitude tracking problem in three scenarios: full state measurements, only measurements of attitude, and measurements of attitude with angular velocity measurements corrupted by a constant bias. In each case, the hybrid feedback is dynamic and incorporates hysteresis-based switching using a single binary logic variable for each quaternion error state. When only attitude measurements are available or the angular rate is corrupted by a constant bias, the proposed controller is observer-based and incorporates an additional quaternion filter and bias observer. The hysteresis mechanism enables the proposed scheme to simultaneously avoid the “unwinding phenomenon” and sensitivity to arbitrarily small measurement noise that is present in discontinuous feedbacks. These properties are shown using a general framework for hybrid systems, and the results are demonstrated by simulation.

363 citations