A motion planning approach to 6-D manipulation with aerial towed-cable systems

We propose a new approach for the reliable 6-dimensional quasi-static manipulation with aerial towedcable systems. The novelty of this approach lies in the combination of results deriving from the static analysis of cable-driven manipulators with a cost-based motion-planning algorithm to solve manipulation queries. Such a combination of methods is able to produce feasible paths that do not approach dangerous/uncontrollable configurations of the system. As part of our approach, we also propose an original system that we name the FlyCrane. It consists of a platform attached to three flying robots using six fixed-length cables. Results of simulations on 6-D quasi-static manipulation problems show the interest of the method.