Aerial Manipulation Using Hybrid Force and Position NMPC Applied to Aerial Writing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hybrid NMPC control method for aerial manipulation with MAVs and robotic arms, demonstrating precise aerial writing with millimeter accuracy through extensive experiments.

Contribution

It presents a novel hybrid control model and NMPC algorithm specifically designed for MAVs with robotic arms, addressing control complexity and interaction forces.

Findings

Achieved millimeter-level accuracy in aerial writing tasks

Successfully implemented hybrid NMPC on a custom MAV-arm system

Demonstrated practical feasibility through extensive experiments

Abstract

Aerial manipulation aims at combining the manoeuvrability of aerial vehicles with the manipulation capabilities of robotic arms. This, however, comes at the cost of the additional control complexity due to the coupling of the dynamics of the two systems. In this paper we present a NMPC specifically designed for MAVs equipped with a robotic arm. We formulate a hybrid control model for the combined MAV-arm system which incorporates interaction forces acting on the end effector. We explain the practical implementation of our algorithm and show extensive experimental results of our custom built system performing multiple aerial-writing tasks on a whiteboard, revealing accuracy in the order of millimetres.