Design, Control, and Motion Planning for a Root-Perching Rotor-Distributed Manipulator

Manipulation performance improvement is crucial for aerial robots. For aerial manipulators, the baselink position and attitude errors directly affect the precision at the end effector. To address this stability problem, fixed-body approaches such as perching on the environment using the rotor suction force are useful. Additionally, conventional arm-equipped multirotors, called rotor-concentrated manipulators, find it difficult to generate a large wrench at the end effector due to joint torque limitations. Using distributed rotors to each link, the thrust can support each link weight, decreasing the arm joints' torque. Based on this approach, rotor-distributed manipulators (RDMs) can increase feasible wrench and reachability of the end effector. This article introduces a minimal configuration of an RDM that can perch on surfaces, especially ceilings, using a part of their body. First, we design a minimal rotor-distributed arm considering the flight and end-effector performance. Second, a flight controller is proposed for this minimal RDM along with a perching controller adaptable for various types of aerial robots. Third, we propose a motion planning method based on inverse kinematics, considering specific constraints to the proposed RDMs, such as perching force. Finally, we evaluate flight and perching motions and confirm that the proposed manipulator can significantly improve the manipulation performance.