Singularity-Free Flight using Rotor-Distributed Aerial Manipulator

Aerial manipulators have been developed in recent years. The most popular type is the multirotor equipped with arms. By employing these rotor-concentrated manipulators (RCMs), various manipulations have been conducted in high places. Compared with RCMs, rotor-distributed manipulators (RDMs) can generate relatively larger wrenches at the end-effector. However, certain types of singular configurations exist during flight. In this letter, we propose design and control methods for the RDM based on previous works (Zhao et al., 2021, Zhao et al., 2018, Nishio et al., 2024). Additionally, we propose a planning method for optimizing the angles of the thrust vectoring apparatus to overcome singularities and maximize controllability in arbitrary poses. Finally, we verify the feasibility of the proposed methods through experiments. By using a quad-rotor, we achieve stable flight in challenging poses, such as horizontal or vertical line configurations.