Autonomous Object Retrieval with an Unmanned Aerial Manipulator in Confined Spaces

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4Front Robotics, an all-Canadian company based in Calgary builds highly maneuverable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that perform services for diverse complex missions in applications such as pipeline monitoring, search & rescue, urban policing, power line clearance inspection, 3D terrain imaging, etc. The company is taking leadership role in adding manipulation capabilities to its UAVs by attaching a lightweight arm to its UAVs in order to give them manipulation capabilities for tasks such as retrieval of debris from cluttered environments, manipulation of objects trapped in a confined space, and delivery of small payloads into difficult-to-reach areas. A key focus of the proposed research project is to develop an integrated trajectory planning, grasping and control system that enables the UAV-Maniuplator system to autonomously follow a given end-effector trajectory and grasp an object while avoiding collisions with obstacles in the environment.