Prototype, Modeling, and Control of Aerial Robots With Physical Interaction: A Review

This article aims to investigate the research achievements related to aerial robots with physical interaction. Various morphologies of aerial physical interaction (APhI) robot prototypes with fixed wing, flapping wing, single main rotor, conventional underactuated multirotor, fully actuated multirotor, even deformed multirotor, and multiple platforms are reviewed for different APhI tasks associated with momentary, loose, and strong interaction coupling. This review also covers APhI robot rigid dynamics and robot-environment coupled interaction dynamics modeling methods, interaction wrench measurement/estimation, decoupled and coupled control, active aerial interaction control, and task-constrained planning approaches. Finally, future development directions and prospects are initially anticipated for aerial robots with physical interaction.
Note to Practitioners
—Aerial physical interaction (APhI) has been a hot topic in the field of aerial robots in recent years, which is a reflection of the advanced capabilities of aerial robots. However, APhI robots face challenges such as difficulty in flight stability and weak adaptability to dynamic environments while exerting active influence on environments. Under this background, this review aims to offer a reference for researchers and practitioners engaged in the related field from the aspects of system design, modeling, control, and task-constrained planning, which hopes to help them apply APhI robots to polar scientific expeditions, complex environment sampling, infrastructure inspection and maintenance, and other application areas. Further, this review also highlights the design idea of rigid-soft integrated APhI robots from the perspective of design-mechanism-performance to enhance interaction stability and safety.