Aerial Manipulator Suspended from a Cable-Driven Parallel Robot: Preliminary Experimental Results

Abstract

Since omnidirectional aerial vehicles can generate a six degrees of freedom wrench, they could be used for dexterous manipulation tasks without the need for an additional robotic arm. However, they suffer from a reduced efficiency and dynamics range due to the huge amount of energy lost in gravity compensation.In this work, we introduce an omnidirectional aerial manipulator suspended from a cable-driven parallel robot (CDPR) by a spring, combining the advantages of the CDPR large workspace with the high dynamics of aerial vehicles, while reducing energy consumption thanks to gravity compensation.A partitioned control scheme is implemented to regulate both systems separately. A preliminary control strategy is proposed for the CDPR motion that minimizes the total energy consumption. Experiments are carried out to assess the added value of the CDPR carrier.