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Herbert Werner - IEEE Xplore Author Profile

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Logistics and service operations involving parcel preparation, delivery, and unpacking from a supply point to a user’s home could be carried out completely by robots in the near future, taking advantage of the capabilities of the different robot morphologies for the logistics, outdoor, and domestic environments. The use of robots for parcel delivery can contribute to the goals of sustainability an...Show More
Effective base orientation control is crucial for various on-orbit operations, including servicing, repair, and maintenance. In scenarios where the system attitude is controlled independently of the manipulator(s), such as in tele-manipulation tasks, it is imperative to stabilize the camera field of view. This study presents a state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) adaptive optimal control aimed ...Show More
This paper presents a bilateral teleoperation system based on smart servos for the realization of dexterous manipulation tasks with aerial robots or in ground service applications, facilitating the transferability of cognitive capabilities of human workers to robots operating remotely or in high altitude workspaces. The system consists of a pair of lightweight and compliant anthropomorphic dual ar...Show More
Ground testing is of paramount importance to verify and validate space operations and the associated control algorithms before on-orbit deployment. Although state-of-the-art facilities are capable of reproducing zero-G environment with high degree of fidelity, these infrastructures can be complemented with multi-rotors emulating free flying or free floating conditions, exploiting the similarities ...Show More
In aerial manipulators, the presence of cables between the aerial platform and the articulated system is beneficial to increase the distance between rotors' blades and the obstacles in the workspace and absorb unavoidable impacts arising during the interaction with the environment. However, cables also produce pendulum-like oscillatory behaviour due to dynamic coupling and to the effect of externa...Show More
This paper presents a comparative performance evaluation of three different teleoperation interfaces for very low weight (<3 kg) anthropomorphic dual arms intended to conduct complex manipulation tasks involving a certain level of dexterity, accuracy and agility, either in ground service or in aerial manipulation applications. A visual human pose estimation system is developed to obtain the Cartes...Show More
The state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) is a nonlinear optimal controller with a flexible structure which is one of the main advantages of this method. Here in this work, this flexibility is used to present a novel design for handling a soft constraint for state variables (trajectories). The concept is applied to a large-scale swarm control system, with more than 1000 agents. The control of th...Show More
Motivated by the convenience of improving the performance of long-reach aerial manipulators in the realization of maintenance tasks on high-voltage power lines, this paper proposes a constrained design optimization method for dual-arm aerial manipulators intended to reduce the weight while increasing the workspace of the robot. This configuration, in which the arms are separated from the aerial pl...Show More
This letter is focused on the benchmark evaluation and comparison of the flapping and fixed wing flight modes on an hybrid platform developed for the realization of autonomous inspection operations outdoors. The platform combines the high range and endurance of fixed-wing UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), with the higher maneuverability and intrinsic safety of flapping wing in the interaction with ...Show More
The inspection and maintenance of power lines with aerial robots requires to decrease as much as possible the performance time given the limited capacity of the batteries and the vast extension of this kind of infrastructure. In order to avoid the waste of time associated to the take-off and landing maneuvers, this paper proposes the use of aerial manipulation robots for fast and safe delivery in ...Show More
This article analyzes the evolution and current trends in aerial robotic manipulation, comprising helicopters, conventional underactuated multirotors, and multidirectional thrust platforms equipped with a wide variety of robotic manipulators capable of physically interacting with the environment. It also covers cooperative aerial manipulation and interconnected actuated multibody designs. The revi...Show More
This paper presents the design, modelling, control, and experimental validation of a novel flapping wing aerial robot built with servo actuators that could be applied in search, rescue, and assistance to injured people. The proposed concept design is intended to facilitate the construction of this kind of aerial robots following a modular and reconfigurable approach, consisting of a series of Serv...Show More
This paper presents an aerial manipulation robot intended to conduct the installation of clip-type bird diverters on power lines, consisting of a multirotor platform equipped with a high force linear actuator and a clamp mechanism that holds the device until it is exerted on the cable. The installation mechanism has been specifically designed for a particular model of bird flight diverter that is ...Show More
The installation and removal of bird diverters from power lines is conducted nowadays by human operators working from manned helicopters or from the power line itself, which entails a certain risk and cost that can be reduced if an aerial manipulator performs these tasks. This paper presents the design of a lightweight gripper (70 g) which is specific for the installation of helical bird diverters...Show More
The use of aerial manipulators for the inspection and maintenance of the power grid requires the safe interaction of the robot with high voltage power lines. In order to identify possible faults or malfunctions during the approaching or interaction phases, this paper presents experimental results in a real 15 kV power line, considering four different configurations for the manipulator: 1) aluminum...Show More
In this paper, we propose a new concept of robot which is hybrid, including aerial and crawling subsystems and an arm, and also modular with interchangeable crawling subsystems for different pipe configurations, since it has been designed to cover most industrial oil & gas end-users' requirements. The robot has the same ability than aerial robots to reach otherwise inaccessible locations, but make...Show More
This paper considers the inspection by contact of long arrays of pipe structures in hard-to-reach places, typical of chemical plants or oil and gas industries, presenting the design of a hybrid rolling-aerial platform capable of landing and moving along the pipes without wasting energy in the propellers during the inspection. The presented robot overcomes the limitation in terms of operation time ...Show More
The ability of aerial manipulation robots to reach and operate in high altitude workspaces may result of interest in a wide variety of applications and scenarios that nowadays cannot be accessed easily by human operators. Consider for example the installation of sensors in polluted areas, the insulation of leaks in pipe structures, or the corrosion repair in power lines and wind turbines. This pap...Show More
This letter is devoted to benchmarks for aerial manipulation robots (drones equipped with robotic arms), which are demonstrating their potential to conduct tasks involving physical interactions with objects or the environment in high altitude workspaces, being a cost effective solution for example in inspection and maintenance operations. Thus, the letter deals with different methods and criteria ...Show More
Winged aerial robots represent an evolution of aerial manipulation robots, replacing the multirotor vehicles by fixed or flapping wing platforms. The development of this morphology is motivated in terms of efficiency, endurance and safety in some inspection operations where multirotor platforms may not be suitable. This paper presents a first prototype of compliant dual arm as preliminary step tow...Show More
The paper presents a multiple task-priority inverse kinematics algorithm for a dual-arm aerial manipulator. Both tasks defined as equality constraints and inequality constraints are handled by means of a singularity robust method based on the Null-Space based Behavioral control. The proposed schema is constituted by the inverse kinematics control, that receives the desired behavior of the system a...Show More
This paper presents the motion planning of a novel aerial robotic system with a long-bar extension and two arms for long-reach manipulation in cluttered environments. The novel aerial long-reach manipulator includes a passive revolute joint between the aerial platform and the dual arm. This feature minimises the torque induced to the aerial system in case of unexpected collisions of the manipulato...Show More
The proximity between the multirotor blades and the environmental obstacles restricts the application of aerial manipulators in inspection tasks due to the risk of impacts, the limitation in the reach of the arm, and the physical interactions. This paper presents a long reach aerial manipulator consisting of a hexarotor platform equipped with a 2-DOF compliant joint arm attached at the tip of a on...Show More
This paper proposes the application of long reach manipulators (LRM) in aerial manipulation, attaching a human size and lightweight dual arm at the tip of a flexible link installed at the base of the aerial platform. This configuration extends the reach and the volume of operation of the manipulator, whose workspace is constrained by the propellers and the landing gear, increasing also safety duri...Show More
This paper presents an anthropomorphic, compliant and lightweight dual arm manipulator designed and developed for aerial manipulation applications with multi-rotor platforms. Each arm provides four degrees of freedom in a human-like kinematic configuration for end effector positioning: shoulder pitch, roll and yaw, and elbow pitch. The dual arm, weighting 1.3 kg in total, employs smart servo actua...Show More