Design and optimal control of a tiltrotor micro aerial vehicle for efficient omnidirectional flight
This addresses the need for robust omnidirectional micro aerial vehicles for applications like aerial interaction and observation, representing a novel integration rather than an incremental improvement.
The paper tackled the problem of designing a micro aerial vehicle that combines complete pose omnidirectionality with high hover efficiency, resulting in a system that can exert a wrench in any orientation while maintaining efficient flight configurations, as demonstrated through flight experiments.
Omnidirectional micro aerial vehicles are a growing field of research, with demonstrated advantages for aerial interaction and uninhibited observation. While systems with complete pose omnidirectionality and high hover efficiency have been developed independently, a robust system that combines the two has not been demonstrated to date. This paper presents the design and optimal control of a novel omnidirectional vehicle that can exert a wrench in any orientation while maintaining efficient flight configurations. The system design is motivated by the result of a morphology design optimization. A six degrees of freedom optimal controller is derived, with an actuator allocation approach that implements task prioritization, and is robust to singularities. Flight experiments demonstrate and verify the system's capabilities.