The AEROARMS Project: Aerial Robots with Advanced Manipulation Capabilities for Inspection and Maintenance

Abstract

T his article summarizes new aerial robotic manipulation technologies and methods—aerial robotic manipulators with dual arms and multidirectional thrusters—developed in the AEROARMS project for outdoor industrial inspection and maintenance (I&M). Our report deals with -- the control systems, including the control of the interaction forces and the compliance -- the teleoperation, which uses passivity to tackle the tradeoff between stability and performance -- the perception methods for localization, mapping, and inspection -- the planning methods, including a new control-aware approach for aerial manipulation. Finally, we describe a novel industrial platform with multidirectional thrusters and a new arm design to increase the robustness in industrial contact inspections. In addition, the lessons learned in applying the platform to outdoor aerial manipulation for I&M are pointed out.