Aerial Manipulation for Indoor Applications by Robert Mitchell

This thesis presents the design and control of a small aerial manipulator operating in indoor environments. The critical challenges of functioning effectively in such environments are (i) maximizing workspace in constrained spaces like narrow corridors or tight corners, and (ii) achieving stable flight when carrying payloads of unknown mass in the presence of uncertainties. While aerial manipulation has been researched to some extent, few efforts have been made to address both of these challenges simultaneously. First, the dynamics of the quadrotor and manipulator are introduced. Then, two types of baseline flight controllers are described as well as a feedforward torque compensation controller and a robust adaptive augmenting controller. Next, the vehicle and manipulator design methodology is discussed. Lastly, results from the implementation of these algorithms on a real aerial manipulator are presented and conclusions of their efficacy are drawn.