Design of a Ducted Fan Aerial Robot for Simulating Weightless Objects

Simulating the motion of objects under conditions of vacuum-induced weightlessness within terrestrial environments has long been a significant research direction in the field of aerospace, which holds substantial significance for operations involving space robotic arms, including cooperation, the capture of non-cooperative targets, and the defense against small celestial bodies. We propose a multi degree of freedom ducted fan quadcopter Aerial robot suitable for ground simulation of weightless objects. In response to the requirements for simulating the position and attitude of objects under weightlessness conditions, the structure of the aerial robot has been designed. The dynamic model of the aircraft has been established using the Newton Euler method, and the decoupling of attitude and position can be achieved through mechanism design and control algorithms. Compared with traditional quadcopter flying robots, the outer frame closed-loop control has been added, and the disturbance caused by the outer frame rotation on the fuselage has been addressed. Based on the original controller, a dynamic feedforward link was introduced, and the functionality of the prototype and the stability and speed of the control system were verified through experiments.