Stability and Robustness Analysis of Plug-Pulling using an Aerial Manipulator

TL;DR

This paper presents a hybrid automata-based approach for stable and robust autonomous aerial plug-pulling using a multirotor manipulator, including trajectory planning and disturbance-observer controllers, validated through real-world experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a hybrid automata framework for mode-based control of aerial plug-pulling, ensuring stability and robustness during dynamic mode transitions.

Findings

Successful real-world wire-pulling experiment validates the approach.

Hybrid automata effectively manage mode transitions for stability.

Proposed controllers maintain robustness against disturbances.

Abstract

In this paper, an autonomous aerial manipulation task of pulling a plug out of an electric socket is conducted, where maintaining the stability and robustness is challenging due to sudden disappearance of a large interaction force. The abrupt change in the dynamical model before and after the separation of the plug can cause destabilization or mission failure. To accomplish aerial plug-pulling, we employ the concept of hybrid automata to divide the task into three operative modes, i.e, wire-pulling, stabilizing, and free-flight. Also, a strategy for trajectory generation and a design of disturbance-observer-based controllers for each operative mode are presented. Furthermore, the theory of hybrid automata is used to prove the stability and robustness during the mode transition. We validate the proposed trajectory generation and control method by an actual wire-pulling experiment with a multirotor-based aerial manipulator.