Fully-Actuated Aerial Manipulator for Infrastructure Contact Inspection: Design, Modeling, Localization, and Control

This paper presents the design, modeling and control of a fully actuated aerial robot for infrastructure contact inspection as well as its localization system. Health assessment of transport infrastructure involves measurements with sensors in contact with the bridge and tunnel surfaces and the inst...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sánchez Cuevas, Pedro Jesús, González Morgado, Antonio, Cortés, Nicolás, Gayango, Diego B., Jiménez Cano, Antonio Enrique, Ollero Baturone, Aníbal, Heredia Benot, Guillermo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Sevilla (US)
Repositorio:idUS. Depósito de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla
OAI Identifier:oai:idus.us.es:11441/101859
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/11441/101859
https://doi.org/10.3390/s20174708
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Aerial systems
Applications
Inspection robotics
Bridge inspection with UAS
Descripción
Sumario:This paper presents the design, modeling and control of a fully actuated aerial robot for infrastructure contact inspection as well as its localization system. Health assessment of transport infrastructure involves measurements with sensors in contact with the bridge and tunnel surfaces and the installation of monitoring sensing devices at specific points. The design of the aerial robot presented in the paper includes a 3DoF lightweight arm with a sensorized passive joint which can measure the contact force to regulate the force applied with the sensor on the structure. The aerial platform has been designed with tilted propellers to be fully actuated, achieving independent attitude and position control. It also mounts a “docking gear” to establish full contact with the infrastructure during the inspection, minimizing the measurement errors derived from the motion of the aerial platform and allowing full contact with the surface regardless of its condition (smooth, rough, ...). The localization system of the aerial robot uses multi-sensor fusion of the measurements of a topographic laser sensor on the ground and a tracking camera and inertial sensors on-board the aerial robot, to be able to fly under the bridge deck or close to the bridge pillars where GNSS satellite signals are not available. The paper also presents the modeling and control of the aerial robot. Validation experiments of the localization system and the control system, and with the aerial robot inspecting a real bridge are also included.