Study of an Aerial Manipulator Interacting with the Environment

The aim of this work is the study and modelling of a UAV, ie an unmanned aerial vehicle, used to support the human being in some operations that could be dangerous. In particular, we have analyzed, by approximating the system to a planar case, the possibility of using a quad-copter equipped with a robotic arm to carry out the inspection by contact of a vertical surface. Starting from the study of the system geometry to find the best assembly configuration of the manipulator on the drone, subsequently it is made a briefly recap on the theory of the control technique called feedback linearization, a basic technique used in the control of non-linear systems. Then are analyzed the cases of contact flight and "free" flight to draw appropriate control laws to be used during inspection maneuvers. Finally, the results of the simulations performed on a model implemented in the Matlab/Simulink environment are shown, in a situation of contact flight, free flight for approaching the wall and a complete inspection maneuver.