The Design of a Lightweight Cable Aerial Manipulator with a CoG Compensation Mechanism for Construction Inspection Purposes

Applied Sciences

Ayham AlAkhras¹  Muhammad Alvi¹  Mohammed W. Qanbar¹  Ilham Hassan Sattar¹  Mohammad A. Jaradat¹  Muhannad Alkaddour² 

[1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah 26666, United Arab Emirates;Graduate Program in Mechatronics Engineering, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah 26666, United Arab Emirates;

关键词: aerial manipulator;    cable aerial manipulator;    center of gravity compensation;    unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/quadrotor;   

DOI  :  10.3390/app12031173

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Conventionally, aerial manipulators, when used for inspection, use drone rotors to stabilize the center of gravity (CoG) shifts, which highly affects its performance. This paper discusses the development of a self-balancing lightweight cable aerial manipulator that can be used for construction inspection purposes. The design is based on a 3D-printed, three degrees of freedom (DoF), planar cable manipulator that is mounted on an extended platform below it as a counter-balance mechanism. The actuators control the manipulator links through a cable system, allowing them to be mounted at the system base to reduce the moving mass of the manipulator during operation. The counter-balance mechanism compensates for any shifts in the CoG of the system by actively sliding a counter-balance weight, mainly a battery, which powers the setup. This mechanism can be attached beneath an off-the-shelf quadrotor to solve the problem of CoG shifts. CoG shifts are due to the manipulator operation when a payload or inspection tool is attached to the end effector to perform a given task. For construction integrity inspection, the aerial manipulator must remain stable during the push or slide processes on both flat and curved surfaces while the non-destructive tests are carried out. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed design, an experimental setup was used, and comparisons were made between the compensated and uncompensated tilt angles of the aerial manipulator. Significant tilt angle reductions were observed with an average of 94.69% improvement, undergoing different manipulator motions during different operation scenarios, as a result of an active compensation of the CoG shift and lightweight design of the system, without sacrificing the functionality of the manipulator for the task.

【 授权许可】

Unknown