Modelling And Control Of Aerial Manipulators Considering Aerodynamic Effects

Abstract

The interest of the research community in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has signi cantly grown in the last decade. Actually, this topic is becoming specially attractive for industrial companies due to its varied application range. Beyond their current commercial applications, where drones are used to carry out passive tasks, such as lming, surveillance, visual inspection, monitoring or remote sensing, the research community is going further using these drones as aerial robots which can physically interact with the environment. In those interactions, the aerial robot works quite close to several obstacles or objects, and thus, the aerodynamic characterisation of the phenomena that arise when ying close to those obstacles becomes relevant to ensure that the aerial manipulation operation can be performed in a safe and e ective way. This thesis takes part in this speci c problem that arises in aerial manipulators ying close to obstacles, through the development of new models and adapted control techniques to ensure safety and e ectiveness during operation in real scenarios. Along this Thesis, the author proposes the study of the generalisation of the classical method based on linearised potential aerodynamics and also through experimental results. The Thesis also treats two di erent cases of use in which the aerodynamic e ect has been taken into account from the control point of view. Last, it makes a twist to the modelled aerodynamic e ect going beyond classical models, studying how di erent aerodynamic e ects arise when the robot approaches di erent obstacles.