A Morphing Aerial Robot With Thruster-Integrated Flexible Continuum Links for Shape Adaptive Aerial Manipulation

2026-09-16

AI Summary

本文提出了一种具有柔性连续体连杆和分布式推进器的变形空中机器人，以实现高形状适应性和扩大的力矩空间，解决了环境适应性和操纵能力扩展的问题。

Abstract

In recent years, aerial manipulation has attracted increasing attention as a key to expand the application of aerial robots. In this work, we focus on two major research directions for achieving versatile aerial manipulation: (i) acquiring high environmental adaptability using soft manipulators, and (ii) expanding the feasible wrench space by distributing thrusters along the manipulator. However, no aerial robot has simultaneously satisfied these two requirements. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a morphing rotor-distributed aerial robot with flexible continuum links that achieves both high shape adaptability and an expanded wrench space. The flexible continuum links function as soft manipulators, passively conforming to the shape of the environment, while the thrusters distributed along the continuum links expand the feasible thrust wrench space and enable the end-effector to exert large interaction forces. To realize the proposed robot, it is essential to suppress vibrations of the lightweight continuum links. Thus, we develop a composite leaf-spring structure that provides both high torsional and vertical stiffness, and vibration-suppressing control methods. Using these implementations, we demonstrate stable flight and a variety of aerial manipulation tasks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work to realize aerial manipulations using flexible links with an integrated thruster.

Problem

• aerial manipulation
• flexible manipulators
• thruster distribution
• continuum links

Innovation

• Morphing Aerial Robot
• Flexible Continuum Links
• Thruster-Integrated
• Vibration-Suppressing Control
• Shape Adaptive Aerial Manipulation