Versatile Articulated Aerial Robot DRAGON: Aerial Manipulation and Grasping by Vectorable Thrust

This is the video for a paper accepted by International Journal of Robotics Research (IJRR). Paper URL: Titile: Versatile articulated aerial robot DRAGON: Aerial manipulation and grasping by vectorable thrust control Author: Moju Zhao, Kei Okada, Masayuki Inaba Abstract: Various state-of-the-art works have achieved aerial manipulation and grasping by attaching additional manipulator to aerial robots. However, such a coupled platform has limitations in interaction force and mobility. In this paper, we present the achievement of aerial manipulation and grasping by a novel articulated aerial robot called DRAGON, in which a vectorable rotor unit is embedded in each link. The key to performing stable manipulation and grasping in the air is the two degrees-of-freedom rotor vectoring apparatus. First, a comprehensive flight control methodology for aerial transformation using the vectorable thrust force is developed, which