Aerial vehicles equipped with manipulators can serve contact-based industrial applications, where fundamental tasks like drilling and grinding often necessitate aerial platforms to handle heavy tools. Industrial environments often involve non-horizontal surfaces. Existing aerial manipulation platforms based on multirotors typically feature a fixed CoM (Center of Mass) within the rotor-defined area, leading to a considerable moment arm between the EE (End-Effector) tip and the CoM for operations on such surfaces. Carrying heavy tools at the EE tip of the manipulator with an extended moment arm can lead to system instability and potential damage to the servo actuators used in the manipulator. To tackle this issue, we present a novel aerial vehicle tailored for handling heavy tools on non-horizontal surfaces. In this work, we provide the platform's system design, modeling, and control strategies. This platform can carry heavy manipulators within the rotor-defined area during free flight. During interactions, the manipulator can shift towards the work surface outside the rotor-defined area, resulting in a displaced CoM location with a significantly shorter moment arm. Furthermore, we propose a method for automatically determining the manipulator's position to reach the maximum CoM displacement towards the work surface. Our proposed concepts are validated through simulations that closely capture the developed physical prototype of the platform.

翻译：配备机械臂的飞行器可应用于接触式工业场景，其中钻孔、打磨等基础作业常要求空中平台搭载重型工具。工业环境通常涉及非水平表面。现有基于多旋翼的空中作业平台常将质心（CoM）固定于旋翼覆盖区域内部，导致在非水平表面作业时，末端执行器（EE）尖端与质心之间存在显著力臂。在机械臂末端执行器配备重型工具且力臂延伸的情况下，可能导致系统失稳并损坏机械臂伺服执行机构。为解决此问题，我们提出一种专用于非水平表面重载工具操作的新型飞行器。本文介绍了该平台的系统设计、建模与控制策略。该平台在自由飞行阶段可将重型机械臂收纳于旋翼覆盖区域内。接触作业时，机械臂可向旋翼覆盖区域外的工作表面偏移，形成质心位移并显著缩短力臂。此外，我们提出一种自动确定机械臂位置的方法，以获取朝向工作表面的最大质心偏移量。通过精确模拟物理样机特性的仿真实验，验证了所提概念的有效性。