Image-Based Control for Aerial Manipulation

This paper presents a new image-based servo control scheme that endows an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with a robotic arm with the capability of automatically positioning elements on target objects. Through a new formalism, the proposed visual servo scheme controls both the UAV and the manipulator simultaneously. It takes into account the whole system redundancy as well as the peculiarity of under-actuation related to rotary-wing crafts. While it controls the system at the velocity level, it makes use of the mobility afforded by the UAV and the dexterity inherent to robot manipulators. The case of large initial errors is explicitly addressed. Results of simulations are reported to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.