Aerial robotic systems have raised emerging interests in recent years. In this article, we propose a novel aerial manipulator system that is significantly different from conventional aerial discrete manipulators: An Aerial Continuum Manipulator (AeCoM). The AeCoM compactly integrates a quadrotor with a tendon-driven continuum robotic manipulator. Due to the compact design and the payload bearing ability of tendon-driven continuum robotic arms, the proposed system solved the conflict between payload capacity and dexterity lying in conventional aerial manipulators. Two contributions are made in this paper: 1) a sensor-based kinematic model is developed for precise modeling in the presence of variable loading; and 2) a tendon slacking prevention system is developed in the presence of aggressive motions. The detailed design of the system is presented and extensive experimental validations have been performed to validate the system self-initialization, payload capacity, precise kinematic modeling with variable end-effector (EE) loadings during aerial grasping and tendon-slacking prevention. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed novel aerial continuum manipulator system solves the constraints in conventional aerial manipulators and has more potential applications in clustered environments.

翻译：近年来，空中机器人系统引起了新兴的研究兴趣。本文提出一种与传统空中离散机械臂显著不同的新型空中机械臂系统：空中连续体机械臂（AeCoM）。该系统将四旋翼飞行器与肌腱驱动的连续体机械臂紧凑集成。由于腱驱动连续体机械臂的紧凑设计及其承载能力，所提系统解决了传统空中机械臂中载荷能力与灵活性之间的矛盾。本文做出两项贡献：1）提出一种基于传感器的运动学模型，用于在存在变负载情况下的精确建模；2）开发了一种在剧烈运动场景下防止肌腱松弛的系统。本文详细介绍了系统设计，并通过大量实验验证了系统自初始化、载荷能力、空中抓取过程中末端执行器（EE）变负载条件下的精确运动学建模以及肌腱松弛预防功能。实验结果表明，所提出的新型空中连续体机械臂系统解决了传统空中机械臂的局限性，在复杂环境中具有更广泛的应用潜力。