Flight Stability of UAV-Manipulator System for Grasping Applications using Sliding Mode Control

Abstract

An Aerial Manipulator is a coupled system which consists of a robotic arm attached to the body of a drone. A drone is itself a non-linear system which is linearly approximated to enable PID control. With the addition of a manipulator, the non-linearity is increased to a significant extent. The combined system has very complex dynamics due to the shifting of the center of mass from actuating the arm. This places a great demand on the flight control system in order to maintain stability. Another problem is the sudden change in system dynamics whenever an object is grasped. The benefit of such a complex system is that the drone will be able to physically interact with the environment that it is inspecting. The interaction can be in the form grasping, pushing, pulling and transport of objects. The purpose of this research is to design and control an aerial manipulator for the stable grasping of small objects.