This work presents the mechanical design and control of a novel small-size and lightweight Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) for aerial manipulation. To our knowledge, with a total take-off mass of only 2.0 kg, the proposed system is the most lightweight Aerial Manipulator (AM) that has 8-DOF independently controllable: 5 for the aerial platform and 3 for the articulated arm. We designed the robot to be fully-actuated in the body forward direction. This allows independent pitching and instantaneous force generation, improving the platform's performance during physical interaction. The robotic arm is an origami delta manipulator driven by three servomotors, enabling active motion compensation at the end-effector. Its composite multimaterial links help reduce the weight, while their flexibility allow for compliant aerial interaction with the environment. In particular, the arm's stiffness can be changed according to its configuration. We provide an in depth discussion of the system design and characterize the stiffness of the delta arm. A control architecture to deal with the platform's overactuation while exploiting the delta arm is presented. Its capabilities are experimentally illustrated both in free flight and physical interaction, highlighting advantages and disadvantages of the origami's folding mechanism.

翻译：本文提出了一种用于空中操作的新型小型轻量化微型空中飞行器（MAV）的机械设计与控制方法。据我们所知，该系统的总起飞质量仅为2.0 kg，是目前最轻量化的、具备独立可控8自由度（其中5个自由度来自飞行平台，3个来自铰接机械臂）的空中操作器（AM）。我们设计该机器人在机体前进方向实现全驱动，从而允许独立俯仰运动和瞬时力生成，提升了平台在物理交互中的性能。机器人臂采用由三个伺服电机驱动的折纸三角机械臂，可实现末端执行器的主动运动补偿。其复合多材料连杆有助于减轻重量，同时其柔性允许与环境的柔性空中交互。特别地，机械臂的刚度可根据其构型变化。我们深入讨论了系统设计并表征了三角机械臂的刚度特性。提出了一种在利用三角机械臂的同时处理平台过驱动问题的控制架构。通过自由飞行和物理交互实验展示了其能力，并重点分析了折纸折叠机构的优缺点。