Aerial Robot Control in Close Proximity to Ceiling: A Force Estimation-based Nonlinear MPC
This enables safer and more battery-efficient ceiling inspections with UAVs, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing control methods for a specific domain.
The paper tackles the problem of controlling aerial robots in close proximity to ceilings for inspection applications, proposing a force estimation-based nonlinear MPC approach that stabilizes UAVs down to 1 cm from the ceiling and reduces power consumption by up to 12.5%.
Being motivated by ceiling inspection applications via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which require close proximity flight to surfaces, a systematic control approach enabling safe and accurate close proximity flight is proposed in this work. There are two main challenges for close proximity flights: (i) the trust characteristics varies drastically for the different distance from the ceiling which results in a complex nonlinear dynamics; (ii) the system needs to consider physical and environmental constraints to safely fly in close proximity. To address these challenges, a novel framework consisting of a constrained optimization-based force estimation and an optimization-based nonlinear controller is proposed. Experimental results illustrate that the performance of the proposed control approach can stabilize UAV down to 1 cm distance to the ceiling. Furthermore, we report that the UAV consumes up to 12.5% less power when it is operated 1 cm distance to ceiling, which is promising potential for more battery-efficient inspection flights.