The New Jersey Institute of Technology's
Electronic Theses & Dissertations Project

Title:	Design and control of next-generation uavs for effectively interacting with environments
Author:	Ding, Caiwu
View Online:	njit-etd2022-018 (xiii, 106 pages ~ 18.8 MB pdf)
Department:	Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Degree:	Doctor of Philosophy
Program:	Mechanical Engineering
Document Type:	Dissertation
Advisory Committee:	Lu, Lu (Committee chair) Fischer, Ian Sanford (Committee member) Ji, Zhiming (Committee member) Wang, Cong (Committee member) Lieber, Samuel (Committee member)
Date:	2022-05
Keywords:	Automation Control Optimization Robotics System dynamics UAV
Availability:	Unrestricted
Abstract:	In this dissertation, the design and control of a novel multirotor for aerial manipulation is studied, with the aim of endowing the aerial vehicle with more degrees of freedom of motion and stability when interacting with the environments. Firstly, it presents an energy-efficient adaptive robust tracking control method for a class of fully actuated, thrust vectoring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with parametric uncertainties including unknown moment of inertia, mass and center of mass, which would occur in aerial maneuvering and manipulation. The effectiveness of this method is demonstrated through simulation. Secondly, a humanoid robot arm is adopted to serve as a 6-degree-of-freedom (DOF) automated flight testing platform for emulating the free flight environment of UAVs while ensuring safety. Another novel multirotor in a tilt-rotor architecture is studied and tested for coping with parametric uncertainties in aerial maneuvering and manipulation. Two pairs of rotors are mounted on two independently-controlled tilting arms placed at two sides of the vehicle in a "H" configuration to enhance its maneuverability and stability through an adaptive robust control method. In addition, an impedance control algorithm is deployed in the out loop that modifies the trajectory to achieve a compliant behavior in the end-effector space for aerial drilling and screwing tasks.