Autonomous Object Retrieval with an Unmanned Aerial Manipulator in Confined Spaces

4Front Robotics是一家总部位于卡尔加里的全加拿大公司，制造高度机动的无人机(UAV)，为管道监控、搜救、城市治安、电力线净空检查、3D地形成像等应用程序中的各种复杂任务提供服务。该公司在为无人机添加操纵能力方面处于领先地位，方法是在无人机上安装轻巧的手臂，使其能够执行任务，如从杂乱的环境中取回碎片，操纵被困在受限空间中的物体，以及将小有效载荷运送到难以到达的区域。拟议研究项目的一个关键重点是开发一个集成的轨迹规划、抓取和控制系统，使无人机-移动机器人系统能够自主跟踪给定的末端执行器轨迹并抓取对象，同时避免与环境中的障碍物相撞。

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.