In recent years, the demand for aerial vehicles has surged across various industries, attributed to their high potential to enhance traditional methods across diverse applications, including, but not limited to, aerial photography, remote sensing, and structural health monitoring. In many of these tasks, a multirotor aerial vehicle (MAV) may be required to physically interact with its environment to gather data—such as placing a sensor in the soil or establishing contact with a surface for maintenance purposes. While some tasks can be executed by conventional MAVs, like quadrotors, more complex operations employing MAVs technology have emerged where the vehicle must maintain a precise stationary pose throughout the task to ensure success. For example, landing a sensor on an inclined surface necessitates regulating the vehicle’s orientation to align with the surface. MAVs with this capability are known as omnidirectional aerial vehicles.
Project Objective:
This project explores the development of a physical interaction controller for the morphing omnidirectional MAV Omnimorph, drawing inspiration from similar controllers designed for a fully actuated vehicle called TiltHex. The project’s primary challenges are twofold, which also constitutes the difference between these two vehicles: First, the Omnimorph platform operates in dual modes, realized by a synchronized-tilting set of propellers, functioning alternately as a quadrotor or a fully actuated vehicle. Second, the unique arrangement of its propellers introduces somewhat considerable aerodynamic interference, which must be accounted for in each propeller’s performance.
Skills Expected to Be Acquired:
• Improved proficiency in coding with MATLAB/Simulink.
• Competency in simulating robotic systems in complex scenarios within the Gazebo physics-based simulator.
• An enriched understanding of robotics modelling and control, with a focus on the control for interaction tasks and the underlying physics of omnidirectional MAVs.
• Efficient communication of scientific results.