Abstract
This article tackles the challenge of negative pressure adhesion control of a Vortex Robotic (VR) platform, which utilizes a modified Electric Ducted Fan (EDF)-based design for successfully adhering to surfaces of variable curvature. The resulting Vortex Actuation (VA) system is estimated through a switching Autoregressive-Moving-Average with eXternal input (ARMAX) identification, for accurately capturing the throttle to adhesion force relationship throughout its operating range. For safe attachment of the robot on a surface, the critical adhesion is modeled based on the geometrical properties of the robotic platform for providing the required reference forces. Within this work, an explicit controller via the use of a Constraint Finite Time Optimal Control (CFTOC) approach is designed in an offline manner, which results in a lookup table realization that ensures overall system stability in all state transitions. In an effort to further improve the tracking response for arbitrary setup orientations, the adhesion control scheme is extended through a switching EMPC framework. The resulting frameworks are tested through both dynamic simulation and experimental sequences involving: a) adhesion control on a rotating test curved surface and, b) adhesion and locomotion sequences on a water pipe.
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Open access funding provided by Lulea University of Technology. This work has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Framework Programme under the call FET-OPEN, grant agreement No. 665238.
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Andreas Papadimitriou: Methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing-original draft preparation, writing-review and editing, visualization. George Andrikopoulos: Conceptualization, visualization, writing-original draft preparation, writing-review and editing, software, project administration, supervision, resources. George Nikolakopoulos: Methodology, project administration, supervision, resources.
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This work has received funding from the European Union’s H2020 Framework Programme under the call FET-OPEN, grant agreement No. 665238.
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Papadimitriou, A., Andrikopoulos, G. & Nikolakopoulos, G. On the Optimal Adhesion Control of a Vortex Climbing Robot. J Intell Robot Syst 102, 57 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01420-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-021-01420-3