Aerial Robotic Manipulation: Research, Development and Applications

385 Pages·2019·20.851 MB·English

by  Anibal Ollero, Bruno Siciliano

Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics 129
Anibal Ollero
Bruno Siciliano Editors
Aerial Robotic
Manipulation
Research, Development and
Applications
Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics
Volume 129
Series Editors
Bruno Siciliano, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e Tecnologie
dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy
Oussama Khatib, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Computer
Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Advisory Editors
NancyAmato,ComputerScience&Engineering,TexasA&MUniversity,College
Station, TX, USA
Oliver Brock, Fakultät IV, TU Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Herman Bruyninckx, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium
WolframBurgard,InstituteofComputerScience,UniversityofFreiburg,Freiburg,
Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Raja Chatila, ISIR, Paris cedex 05, France
Francois Chaumette, IRISA/INRIA, Rennes, Ardennes, France
Wan Kyun Chung, Robotics Laboratory, Mechanical Engineering, POSTECH,
Pohang, Korea (Republic of)
Peter Corke, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of
Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Paolo Dario, LEM, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, Italy
Alessandro De Luca, DIAGAR, Sapienza Università di Roma, Roma, Italy
Rüdiger Dillmann, Humanoids and Intelligence Systems Lab, KIT - Karlsruher
Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe, Germany
Ken Goldberg, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
John Hollerbach, School of Computing, University of Utah, Salt Lake, UT, USA
LydiaE.Kavraki,DepartmentofComputerScience,RiceUniversity,Houston,TX,
USA
Vijay Kumar, School of Engineering and Applied Mechanics, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Bradley J. Nelson, Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich,
Zürich, Switzerland
Frank Chongwoo Park, Mechanical Engineering Department, Seoul National
University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)
S. E. Salcudean, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Roland Siegwart, LEE J205, ETH Zürich, Institute of Robotics & Autonomous
Systems Lab, Zürich, Switzerland
Gaurav S. Sukhatme, Department of Computer Science, University of Southern
California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
TheSpringerTractsinAdvancedRobotics(STAR)publishnewdevelopmentsand
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5208
Anibal Ollero Bruno Siciliano
(cid:129)
Editors
Aerial Robotic Manipulation
Research, Development and Applications
123
Editors
AnibalOllero BrunoSiciliano
GRVC Robotics LabSeville Dipartimento di IngegneriaElettrica edelle
Universidad deSevilla Tecnologie dell’Informazione
Seville,Spain Universitàdi NapoliFederico II
Napoli, Italy
ISSN 1610-7438 ISSN 1610-742X (electronic)
SpringerTracts inAdvanced Robotics
ISBN978-3-030-12944-6 ISBN978-3-030-12945-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12945-3
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Foreword
Robotics is undergoing a major transformation in scope and dimension. From a
largely dominant industrial focus, robotics is rapidly expanding into human envi-
ronmentsandvigorouslyengagedinitsnewchallenges.Interactingwith,assisting,
serving and exploring with humans, the emerging robots will increasingly touch
people and their lives.
Beyond its impact on physical robots, the body of knowledge robotics has
produced is revealing a much wider range of applications reaching across diverse
research areas and scientific disciplines, such as biomechanics, haptics, neuro-
sciences,virtualsimulation,animation,surgeryandsensornetworks,amongothers.
Inreturn,thechallengesofthenewemergingareasareprovinganabundantsource
ofstimulationandinsightsforthefieldofrobotics.Itisindeedattheintersectionof
disciplines that the most striking advances happen.
TheSpringer TractsinAdvancedRobotics(STAR)isdevotedtobringingtothe
research community the latest advances in the robotics field on the basis of their
significance and quality. Through a wide and timely dissemination of critical
researchdevelopmentsinrobotics,ourobjectivewiththisseriesistopromotemore
exchanges and collaborations among the researchers in the community and con-
tribute to further advancements in this rapidly growing field.
This book by Anibal Ollero and Bruno Siciliano offers unique insights into the
challenges of manipulation in aerial robotics. Based on developments pursued in
the framework of the European Commission’s funded projects, ARCAS and
AEROARMS, this volume covers a wide range of fundamental concepts and
advanced methodologies and technologies in this growing area in robotics. The
impressive work on experimental validation for major real-world applications
reveals the field’s increased maturity and expanded scope.
Richbytopicsandauthoritativecontributors,theseEuropeanprojectsculminate
withthisuniquereferenceonthecurrentdevelopmentsandnewdirectionsinaerial
robotics manipulation. A fine addition to the STAR series!
Stanford, California Oussama Khatib
January 2019 STAR Editor
v
Preface
Aerial robotics has experienced an exponential growth in the last years fuelled by
the technology development and the many application possibilities. Drones are
today very popular. Applications such as filming, monitoring, surveillance or
transportation,betweenothers,arebeingperformedalmosteveryday,inadditionto
the defence applications that were well known from many years ago.
Aerialroboticsisthesubjectofparticularscientificandtechnologicalevents,but
currently,itisalsooneofthemainareasingeneralroboticsconferences,withmany
sessions devoted to the aerial robotics topics.
Flightregulations,whichhavebeenpublishedinthelastyears,areclarifyingthe
application possibilities by keeping the safety standards. New regulations will
appear based on risk analysis. Navigation at very low levels and the integration in
unmanned air traffic management systems will also favour the implementation of
new applications.
Aerial robotic manipulation is one of the topics that have attracted the attention
of researchers and that already have relevant applications. It can be considered as
manipulationwithaflyingbase.Itincludesdesignandmechatronicsaspects,which
are essential to achieve the required manipulation performance. Modelling and
controlofaerialrobotswithoneormorearmsalsoposerelevantproblemsdealing
with kinematics, dynamics and aerodynamics of the flying robots physically
interactingwiththeenvironment.Thisbooksummarizesmethodsandtechnologies
in these topics.
Thefundamentaltopicsmentionedintheaboveparagrapharenottheonlyones
neededforaerialroboticmanipulation.Infact,asinotherroboticsareas,perception
and planning are also very important ingredients. Then, this book also includes
research and technology development in perception and planning topics by using
new on-board computational capabilities.
Furthermore,thisbookincludesapplicationsintwodifferentareas:(1)structure
assembly and (2) inspection and maintenance. These two applications have cur-
rently different technology readiness levels (TRL). Thus, inspection and mainte-
nancehashigherTRLandhasbeenalreadyimplementedinindustrialscenariosfor
vii
viii Preface
contact inspection with ultrasonic sensors to measure the wall thickness of pipes
and tanks.
Theresearchanddevelopmentspresentedinthisbookweremainlyconductedin
the framework of the ARCAS and AEROARMS projects funded by the European
Commission.
ARCAS (Aerial Robotics Cooperative Assembly system) was funded under the
FrameworkProgramme7.ItstartedbytheendofNovember2011.Thefinalreview
was in January 2016. The ARCAS partners were Fundación Andaluza para el
Desarrollo Aeroespacial (FADA-CATEC), Universidad de Sevilla (US), Deutsches
ZentrumfrLuft-andRaumfahart(DLR),UniversitàdegliStudidiNapoliFedericoII
(UNINA), Università degli Studi della Basilicata (UNIBAS), Università degli Studi
di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale (UNICAS), Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique(CNRS),UniversitatPolitècnicadeCatalunya(UPC),Alstom(currently
General Electric) Inspection Robotics (AIR) and SpaceTech GmbH.
InARCAS,thefirstworldwideaerialroboticmanipulatorsincludingmultirotors
and helicopters, operating indoors and outdoors with robotic arms with six and
sevendegreesoffreedomweredemonstrated.Thefundamentalmethodsincontrol,
perception and planning in aerial robotics were developed in the context of the
ARCAS project. The controllers implemented both decentralized and centralized
techniques to cancel the effect of the motion of the arms on the hovering of the
aerial platform. The perception methods were based mainly on visual markers
combined with range-only radio technologies. Planning was mainly offline, but
reactivity approaches to avoid in real-time obstacles and other aerial robots were
also developed.
The main aerial robotic platforms and techniques developed in ARCAS are
included in Parts II, III, IV and V of this book.
The final demonstrations of ARCAS were performed indoors and outdoors.
Thus, a system integrated by FADA-CATEC performed indoor structure assembly
with several aerial manipulators, which is included in Part VI of this book. The
system integrated multirotors with very light six degrees offreedom arms enabled
with control techniques for single and cooperative aerial manipulators transporting
the same load. The control systems were developed by UNINA, UNIBAS,
UNICASandFADA-CATEC.TheperceptiontechniquesweredevelopedbyUPC
(visual)andUS(range-only).TheplanningmethodsweredevelopedbyCNRSwith
the collaboration of US for the obstacle detection and avoidance. It also included
the deployment of a crawler mock-up developed by the AIR.
TheoutdoordemonstrationsincludedboththeDLRFlettnerhelicopterequipped
with a seven degrees of freedom LWR (DLR-KUKA) robotic manipulator with
visual servoing and the multirotor of US with another robotic manipulator with
seven degrees offreedom.
ARCAS also included the demonstration of a space system for on-orbit flying
manipulation in satellite servicing. The demonstration was performed by DLR by
simulating the satellite space dynamics by using additional manipulators.
SpaceTech also participated in these demonstrations.
Preface ix
AEROARMS (AErial RObotic system integrating multiple ARMS and
advanced manipulation capabilities for inspection and maintenance) was funded
under the H2020 programme of the European Commission. The project started in
June 2015 and will conclude by the end of May of 2019. The partners are
Universidad de Sevilla (US), FADA-CATEC, CNRS, UNINA, UNIBAS,
UNICAS, TV NORD (TV), UPC, Elektra UAS GmbH (ELEK), General Electric
Inspection Robotics (GEIR) and SENSIMA.
AEROARMS has developed the first aerial robotic manipulators with multiple
arms and advanced manipulation capabilities to be applied in inspection and
maintenance in industrial plants, particularly in works at height that involve sig-
nificant risks for human operators and high costs. Special attention is paid to the
inspection and maintenance of oil and gas industries. The objectives of
AEROARMS are: (1) research and development in aerial robotic manipulation
including dual-arm manipulation systems for complex inspection and maintenance
tasksrequiringdexterityandmultidirectionalthrustplatforms,and(2)validationin
the industrial environment, including contact sensing while flying and deployment
of mobile robotic systems.
Particularly, AEROARMS has developed the first worldwide autonomous
dual-arm manipulator systems with four and five degrees of freedom arms,
including compliant arms, and also the first aerial manipulators with multidirec-
tionalthrustplatforms.Kinematics,dynamicsandaerodynamicmodels,takinginto
accounttheeffectsgeneratedbynearbysurfaces,arealsoincludedinPartIIofthis
book. The decentralized and centralized control techniques of these aerial manip-
ulators are also included in Part III, together with the kinematic behaviour-based
control and the visual servoing. These techniques were developed mainly by US,
CNRS, UNIBAS, UNICAS and UNINA.
The perception techniques were evolved and applied outdoors. Thus, new both
absolute localization and mapping and relative localization were developed by
usingcameras,3Dlidarandradio-basedradio.Moreover,outdoorrobustperception
for detection, localization and grasping without visual markers were developed by
UPC and US. The results are shown in Section IV of the book.
New control-aware planning methods were developed by CNRS, UNIBAS and
UNICAS,andcompletedwithon-linedynamics-awarelocalplanningandreactivity
developed by US and included in Part V of this book.
The methods are being applied in industrial inspection and maintenance in oil
and gas plants by FADA-CATEC with the collaboration of the industrial partners
TV, GEIR and SENSIMA. The first results are included in Part VI. AEROARMS
has received the Overall ICT Innovation Radar Award 2017 of the European
Commission, between 25 finalists, for the contact inspection application of the
AEROX system developed by FADA-CATEC and included in Part VI.
It would not have been possible to produce this book without the help of many
people. We are grateful to all the persons involved in the ARCAS and
AEROARMS projects, which are not authors of the book chapters.
x Preface
We would like to thank Anne Bajart, Project Officer of ARCAS and
AEROARMSuntilOctober2018.Shehadaveryimportantroleintheguidanceof
both projects. Furthermore, we would like here to thank the excellent work of the
project reviewers. Paul Oh, José Neira, Uwe Nortman and Jeremy Gancet were
reviewers of ARCAS. Moreover, José Neira, Uwe Nortman and Tarek Hamel are
reviewersofAEROARMS.Theyallprovidedveryusefulcommentsthatguidedthe
development of both projects.
In addition of ARCAS and AEROARMS, the work in this book has been
supportedbythefundingofotherNationalprojectssuchastheSpanishMinistryof
Economy and Competitiveness projects ARM-EXTEND (DPI2017-89790-R),
AEROCROS (DPI2015-71524-R), HuMoUR (TIN2017-90086-R) and
COLROBTRANSP (DPI2016-78957-R).
Seville, Spain Anibal Ollero
Napoli, Italy Bruno Siciliano
November 2018