Estimation of Time-Varying Inertia of Aerial Manipulators Performing Manipulation of Unknown Objects

Abstract

This paper presents a method for estimating the varying inertia parameters of unmanned aerial manipulators (UAMs) while they perform manipulation maneuvers on a priori unknown objects and execute various flight maneuvers.The varying mass and moment of inertia tensor of the UAM are estimated using the UAM's force and the kinematic model of its robotic arm by means of a novel sequential Kalman filter (KF) algorithm.In order to validate the effectiveness of the mechanism, it is implemented on a highlymaneuverable VTOL-type UAV equipped with a 3 degree-of-freedom (DoF) manipulator capable of moving only on the longitudinal plane of the aircraft.