Development of Add-On Planar Translational Driving System for Aerial Manipulation with Multirotor Platform

We propose an add-on planar translational driving system (ATD) which can be equipped on a multirotor platform for aerial manipulation. The device is lightweight and consists of three ducted fans controlled via an on-board CPU. It uses a simple control method and enables a multirotor to perform positioning and generate force in two dimensions while keeping the airframe horizontal. By translating the multirotor without changing attitude, it can more smoothly and easily perform many types of aerial manipulation tasks with higher positioning accuracy. In this paper, we mainly show the design, modeling, and control of the ATD. Several preliminary experiments were performed to verify the positioning accuracy and effectiveness of the system. In addition, we successfully performed the push and pull task using a rigid arm.