Modeling and control of a hexacopter with a passive manipulator for aerial manipulation

In this paper, a multi-propeller aerial robot with a passive manipulator for aerial manipulation is presented. In order to deal with the collision, external disturbance, changing inertia, and underactuated characteristic during the aerial manipulation, an adaptive trajectory linearization control (ATLC) scheme is presented to stabilize the multi-propeller aerial robot during the whole process. The ATLC controller is developed based on trajectory linearization control (TLC) method and model reference adaptive control (MRAC) method. The stability of the proposed system is analyzed by common Lyapunov function. Numerical simulations are carried out to compare the ATLC with TLC controller facing collision, external disturbance and changing inertia during an aerial manipulation. Experimental results prove that the developed robot can achieve aerial manipulation in the outdoor environment.