Feedback Design and Implementation for Integrated Posture Manipulation and Thrust Vectoring

TL;DR

This thesis presents control system development for two robots, Aerobat and Harpy, integrating posture manipulation and thrust vectoring to achieve stability and untethered movement, with novel applications in flapping wing flight and legged robot stabilization.

Contribution

It introduces new control architectures for Aerobat's untethered flight and Harpy's thrust-assisted dynamic walking, combining posture control with thrust vectoring in innovative ways.

Findings

Aerobat achieved its first untethered flights.

Harpy demonstrated preliminary untethered dynamic walking.

Thrust-assisted stability enhances legged robot locomotion.

Abstract

This MS thesis outlines my contributions to the closed loop control and system integration of two robotic platforms: 1) Aerobat, a flapping wing robot stabilized by air jets, and 2) Harpy, a bipedal robot equipped with dual thrusters. Both systems share a common theme of the integration of posture manipulation and thrust vectoring to achieve stability and controlled movement. For Aerobat, I developed the software and control architecture that enabled its first untethered flights. The control system combines flapping wing dynamics with multiple air jet stabilization to maintain roll, pitch and yaw stability. These results were published in the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). For Harpy, I implemented a closed-loop control framework that incorporates active thruster assisted frontal dynamics stabilization . My work led to preliminary untethered dynamic walking. This approach demonstrates how thrust assisted stability can enhance locomotion in legged robots which has not been explored before.