Related papers: The QuadSoft: Design, Construction, and Experiment…

Conventional quadrotors received great attention in trajectory design and fault-tolerant control in these years. The direction of each thrust is perpendicular to the body because of the geometrics in mechanical design. Comparing with the…

In this work, we propose a novel quadrotor design capable of folding its arms vertically to grasp objects and navigate through narrow spaces. The transformation is controlled actively by a central servomotor, gears, and racks. The arms…

Natural flyers use soft wings to seamlessly enable a wide range of flight behaviours, including agile manoeuvres, squeezing through narrow passageways, and withstanding collisions. In contrast, conventional quadrotor designs rely on rigid…

In this work, an experimental characterization of the configuration space of a soft, pneumatically actuated morphing quadrotor is presented, with a focus on precise thrust characterization of its flexible arms, considering the effect of…

This paper presents a novel morphing quadrotor, named MorphoCopter, covering its design, modeling, control, and experimental tests. It features a unique single rotary joint that enables rapid transformation into an ultra-narrow profile.…

This paper deals with the dynamics and controls of a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle that is connected to a fixed point on the ground via a tether. Tethered quadrotors have been envisaged for long-term aerial surveillance with high-speed…

Quadrotors have gained popularity over the last decade, aiding humans in complex tasks such as search and rescue, mapping and exploration. Despite their mechanical simplicity and versatility compared to other types of aerial vehicles, they…

The Roller-Quadrotor is a novel quadrotor that combines the maneuverability of aerial drones with the endurance of ground vehicles. This work focuses on the design, modeling, and experimental validation of the Roller-Quadrotor. Flight…

This article presents a novel SOFA based finite element method for the soft body modeling and the corresponding dynamic simulation and control of a pneumatic morphing soft quadrotor. The proposed modeling preserves the physical…

Manipulation and grasping with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) currently require accurate positioning and are often executed at reduced speed to ensure successful grasps. This is due to the fact that typical UAVs can only accommodate rigid…

The increasing use of drones in human-centric applications highlights the need for designs that can survive collisions and recover rapidly, minimizing risks to both humans and the environment. We present HoLoArm, a quadrotor with compliant…

Hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) integrate the efficient forward flight of fixed-wing and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities of multicopter UAVs. This paper presents the modeling, control and simulation of a new type of…

This paper presents, for the first time, the soft planar vertical take-off and landing (Soft-PVTOL) aircraft. This concept captures the soft aerial vehicle's fundamental dynamics with a minimum number of states and inputs but retains the…

Collision detection and recovery for aerial robots remain a challenge because of the limited space for sensors and local stability of the flight controller. We introduce a novel collision-resilient quadrotor that features a compliant arm…

As quadrotors take on an increasingly diverse range of roles, researchers often need to develop new hardware platforms tailored for specific tasks, introducing significant engineering overhead. In this article, we introduce the UniQuad…

Bidirectional thrust grants quadrotors a second equilibrium condition and increased control authority, expanding the envelope of possible aggressive maneuvers and enabling inverted flight, perching, and sensing. Prior geometric control…

This paper focuses on developing a bearings-only measurement-based three-dimensional window traversal guidance method for quadrotor Uninhabitated Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The desired flight path and heading angles of the quadrotor are…

Autonomous missions of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are prone to collisions owing to environmental disturbances and localization errors. Consequently, a UAV that can endure collisions and perform recovery control in critical aerial…

Quadcopters, as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have great potential in civil applications such as surveying, building monitoring, and infrastructure condition assessment. Quadcopters, however, are relatively sensitive to noises and…

Flying manipulators are aerial drones with attached rigid-bodied robotic arms and belong to the latest and most actively developed research areas in robotics. The rigid nature of these arms often lack compliance, flexibility, and smoothness…