A Tilt-Rotor UAV with a Gripper for Stable Contact-Based Tasks via Environmental Anchoring

2026-08-03

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge of aerial robots losing pose stability and precise positioning during contact-based tasks due to physical interactions. To overcome this, the authors propose a novel tilt-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle system that integrates a tilt-rotor configuration with an underactuated compliant cable-driven gripper. By employing an environmental anchoring strategy, the system enables seamless transitions between flight and stable manipulation modes while adapting to unstructured surfaces. Experimental results demonstrate that, in the anchored state, the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of positional drift is reduced by over 95%, consistently remaining below 3 mm. Furthermore, the system can withstand longitudinal reaction forces up to 75 N, significantly enhancing stability and practicality in contact-intensive tasks.

Abstract

Maintaining a stable pose during physical interaction is a significant challenge for aerial robots, often limiting their use in contact-based tasks. This paper presents a novel uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) platform designed to transition from unconstrained flight to a stable, constrained work platform via environmental anchoring. Our system comprises: 1) a multirotor with a tilt-rotor mechanism that decouples pitch from forward motion, enabling stable hover at non-zero pitch angles, and 2) a novel underactuated, cable-driven, prismatic gripper featuring compliance to adapt to irregular geometries, designed to stabilize the UAV by anchoring it to its environment. We present the design and prototyping of the complete system and validate its performance through a series of real-robot flight tests. Results demonstrate that anchoring significantly improves stability for interaction tasks, reducing positional drift RMSE by over 95% compared to a free-flight baseline, even under windy conditions. The anchored system can withstand longitudinal reaction forces up to 75N while maintaining a stable pose. Furthermore, across a range of target geometries and orientations, the system demonstrated consistent stability with a positional drift RMSE that never exceeded 3mm. These results establish the viability of our approach for complex physical interaction tasks, such as sampling tree health by drilling or sensor installation in hard-to-reach locations. Watch our UAV at: https://youtu.be/HDQ8S4ZW3Ls

Problem

• aerial robots
• stable pose
• contact-based tasks
• physical interaction
• positional drift

Innovation

• Tilt-Rotor UAV
• Environmental Anchoring
• Underactuated Gripper
• Stable Contact-Based Interaction
• Compliant Manipulation