Autonomous aerial perching and unperching using omnidirectional tiltrotor and switching controller

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lee, Dongjae, Hwang, Sunwoo, Byun, Jeonghyun, Lee, Seung Jae, Kim, H. Jin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Lee, Dongjae
Hwang, Sunwoo
Byun, Jeonghyun
Lee, Seung Jae
Kim, H. Jin
author_facet Lee, Dongjae
Hwang, Sunwoo
Byun, Jeonghyun
Lee, Seung Jae
Kim, H. Jin
contents Aerial unperching of multirotors has received little attention as opposed to perching that has been investigated to elongate operation time. This study presents a new aerial robot capable of both perching and unperching autonomously on/from a ferromagnetic surface during flight, and a switching controller to avoid rotor saturation and mitigate overshoot during transition between free-flight and perching. To enable stable perching and unperching maneuvers on/from a vertical surface, a lightweight ($\approx$ $1$ \si{kg}), fully actuated tiltrotor that can hover at $90^\circ$ pitch angle is first developed. We design a perching/unperching module composed of a single servomotor and a magnet, which is then mounted on the tiltrotor. A switching controller including exclusive control modes for transitions between free-flight and perching is proposed. Lastly, we propose a simple yet effective strategy to ensure robust perching in the presence of measurement and control errors and avoid collisions with the perching site immediately after unperching. We validate the proposed framework in experiments where the tiltrotor successfully performs perching and unperching on/from a vertical surface during flight. We further show effectiveness of the proposed transition mode in the switching controller by ablation studies where large overshoot and even collision with a perching site occur. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work presents the first autonomous aerial unperching framework using a fully actuated tiltrotor.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_11310
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Autonomous aerial perching and unperching using omnidirectional tiltrotor and switching controller
Lee, Dongjae
Hwang, Sunwoo
Byun, Jeonghyun
Lee, Seung Jae
Kim, H. Jin
Robotics
Aerial unperching of multirotors has received little attention as opposed to perching that has been investigated to elongate operation time. This study presents a new aerial robot capable of both perching and unperching autonomously on/from a ferromagnetic surface during flight, and a switching controller to avoid rotor saturation and mitigate overshoot during transition between free-flight and perching. To enable stable perching and unperching maneuvers on/from a vertical surface, a lightweight ($\approx$ $1$ \si{kg}), fully actuated tiltrotor that can hover at $90^\circ$ pitch angle is first developed. We design a perching/unperching module composed of a single servomotor and a magnet, which is then mounted on the tiltrotor. A switching controller including exclusive control modes for transitions between free-flight and perching is proposed. Lastly, we propose a simple yet effective strategy to ensure robust perching in the presence of measurement and control errors and avoid collisions with the perching site immediately after unperching. We validate the proposed framework in experiments where the tiltrotor successfully performs perching and unperching on/from a vertical surface during flight. We further show effectiveness of the proposed transition mode in the switching controller by ablation studies where large overshoot and even collision with a perching site occur. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work presents the first autonomous aerial unperching framework using a fully actuated tiltrotor.
title Autonomous aerial perching and unperching using omnidirectional tiltrotor and switching controller
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.11310