Stability control in aerial manipulation

Aerial manipulation, grasping, and perching in small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) require specific control systems to compensate for changing inertial properties. Grasped objects, external forces from terrain objects, or manipulator movements themselves may destabilize or otherwise alter the flight characteristics of small UAVs during operation resulting in undesirable outcomes. Traditional control methods that assume static mass and inertial properties must be modified to produce stable control of a quadrotor system. This paper presents work towards a control scheme to achieve dynamic stability of an aerial vehicle while under the influence of manipulators and grasped objects. A quadrotor with attached multi-degree of freedom manipulators is implemented in simulation and constructed for testing. Compensation of the inertial changes due to in-flight manipulator movements is investigated. A control scheme is developed and results are presented.