Design and Control of a Flying Gripper and Manipulator for the Assisted Disposal of Improvised Explosive Devices

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are an ever-growing worldwide threat. The disposal of IEDs is typically performed by experts of the police or the armed forces with the help of specialized ground Ordnance Disposal Robots (ODRs). Unlike aerial robots, those ODRs have poor mobility, and their deployment in complex environments can be challenging or even impossible. Endowed with manipulation capabilities, aerial robots can perform complex manipulation tasks akin to ground robots. This thesis leverages the manipulation skills and the high mobility of aerial robots to perform aerial disposal of IEDs. Being, in essence, an aerial manipulation task, this work presents numerous contributions to the broader field of aerial manipulation. This thesis presents the mechatronic concept of an aerial ODR and a high-level view of the fundamental building blocks developed throughout this thesis. Starting with the system dynamics, a new hybrid modeling approach for aerial manipulators (AMs) is proposed that provides the closed-form dynamics of any given open-chain AM. Next, a highly integrated, lightweight Universal Gripper (called TRIGGER) customized for aerial manipulation is introduced to improve grasping performance in unstructured environments. The gripper (attached to a multicopter) is tested under laboratory conditions by performing a pick-and-release task. Finally, an autonomous grasping solution is presented alongside its control architecture featuring computer vision and trajectory optimization. To conclude, the grasping concept is validated in a simulated IED disposal scenario.