@article {71, title = {A Truly-Redundant Aerial Manipulator System With Application to Push-and-Slide Inspection in Industrial Plants}, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, volume = {4}, year = {2019}, month = {01/2019}, pages = {1846-1851}, abstract = {

We present the design, motion planning, and control of an aerial manipulator for non-trivial physical interaction tasks, such as pushing while sliding on curved surfaces-a task which is motivated by the increasing interest in autonomous non-destructive tests for industrial plants. The proposed aerial manipulator consists of a multidirectional-thrust aerial vehicle-to enhance physical interaction capabilities-endowed with a 2-DoFs lightweight arm-to enlarge its workspace. This combination makes it a trulyredundant manipulator going beyond standard aerial manipulators based on collinear multirotor platforms. The controller is based on a PID method with a {\textquotedblleft}displaced{\textquotedblright} positional part that ensures asymptotic stability despite the arm elasticity. A kinodynamic task-constrained and control-aware global motion planner is used. Experiments show that the proposed aerial manipulator system, equipped with an Eddy current probe, is able to scan a metallic pipe sliding the sensor over its surface and preserving the contact. From the measures, a weld on the pipe is successfully detected and mapped.

}, keywords = {aerial manipulator, contact-based inspection, dexterous manipulators, motion control, motion planning}, issn = {2377-3766}, doi = {10.1109/LRA.2019.2895880}, author = {Marco Tognon and Hermes A. Tello-Chavez and Enrico Gasparin and Quentin Sabl{\'e} and Davide Bicego and Anthony Mallet and Marc Lany and Gilles Santi and Bernard Revaz and Juan Cort{\'e}s and Antonio Franchi} } @article {70, title = {Control-Aware Motion Planning for Task-Constrained Aerial Manipulation}, journal = {IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Special Issue on Aerial Manipulation}, volume = {3}, year = {2018}, note = {

Also selected for presentation at the 2018 IEEE Int. Conf. on Robotics and Automation, Brisbane , Australia

}, month = {07/2018}, pages = {2478-2484}, abstract = {

This letter presents a new method to address the problem of task-constrained motion planning for aerial manipulators. We propose a control-aware planner based on the paradigm of tight coupling between planning and control. Such paradigm is especially useful in aerial manipulation, where the separation between planning and control is not advisable. The proposed sampling based motion planner uses a controller composed of a second-order inverse kinematics algorithm and a dynamic tracker, as a local planner, thus allowing a more natural consideration of the closed-loop system dynamics. For task-constrained motions, this method let us to sample directly in the reduced and more relevant task space, predict the behavior of the controller avoiding motions that bring to singularities or large tracking errors, and guarantee the correct execution of the maneuver. The method is tested in simulation for a multidirectional-thrust vehicle endowed with a 2-DoF manipulator. The proposed approach is very general, and could be applied to ground and underwater robotic systems to perform manipulation or inspection tasks.

}, keywords = {aerial manipulator, control-aware motion planning, task-constrained motions}, issn = {2377-3766}, doi = {10.1109/LRA.2018.2803206}, author = {Marco Tognon and Elisabetta Cataldi and Hermes A. Tello-Chavez and Gianluca Antonelli and Juan Cort{\'e}s and Antonio Franchi} }