Trajectory Generation for Unmanned Aerial Manipulators Through Quadratic Programming

In this paper, a trajectory generation approach using quadratic programming is described for aerial manipulation, i.e., for the control of an aerial vehicle equipped with a robot arm. The proposed approach applies the online active set strategy to generate a feasible trajectory of the joints, in order to accomplish a set of tasks with defined bounds and constraint inequalities. The definition of the problem in the acceleration domain allows to integrate and perform a large set of tasks and, as a result, to obtain smooth motion of the joints. A weighting strategy, associated with a normalization procedure, allows us to easily define the relative importance of the tasks. This approach is useful to accomplish different phases of a mission with different redundancy resolution strategies. The performance of the proposed technique is demonstrated through real experiments with all the algorithms running onboard in real time. In particular, the aerial manipulator can successfully perform navigation and interaction phases, while keeping motion within prescribed bounds and avoiding collisions with external obstacles.