Aerial manipulator for structure inspection by contact from the underside

Abstract

This paper presents an aerial manipulator consisting of a multirotor equipped with a robotic multi-link arm attached to the top of the multirotor body. This setup has strong potentialities for inspection of structures, since the arm is able to safely touching the structure surface with a sensor while flying, taking measurements from the underside for example in bridges. The paper presents the dynamic model of the system and the derivation of a nonlinear controller, which is tested in simulation. First flight experiments with prototype of the system are also presented.