Nonlinear Control of Aerial Manipulator

Sandesh Thapa

eess.SYOct 25, 2026

Nonlinear Control of Aerial Manipulator

Authors: Sandesh Thapa

Organizations: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Control, Robotics & Automation Lab (CoRAL), Spring 2017 Oklahoma State University Stillwater, Oklahoma

Abstract

This paper presents two controllers for a quadrotor equipped with a two-DOF robot manipulator that physically interacts with the environment. Cartesian impedance and adaptive sliding mode controllers are implemented and compared for a simple hovering task in the presence of some bounded disturbance. A full dynamic model is developed, and the two above controllers are implemented with the same initial conditions and desired position.

Figures & tables

Fig. 1: Time histories simulation for Rigid Case.

Fig. 2: Time histories simulation for Compliant Case.

Fig. 3: Time histories simulation for Compliant Rigid Case.

Fig. 4: Time histories simulation for adaptive sliding mode controller.

Fig. 5: Position history of the quadrotor.

Fig. 6: Attitude history of the quadrotor.

Z position	Rigid	Compliant	CompRigid	AdpSMC
overshoot	8%	36.05%	33.66	0
rise time (sec)	0.8	1.8	1.5	4.4
settling time (sec)	1.8	7	5	5

TABLE I: Comparison of response for z-position

error	position (m)	orientation (rad)	end eff pos (m)
Rigid	0.6265	0.0088	0.0628
Compliant	1.2006	0.0258	0.0811
CompRigid	1.0148	0.023	0.0879
AdpSMC	1.0769	4.90E-07	0.1128

TABLE II: Comparison of RMS error for two controllers

Fig. 9: Error comparison for both of the controllers

Aerial Robotics

Aerial robotics studies the design, perception, control, and coordination of flying robots for navigation, inspection, transport, and physical interaction.

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Hybrid Impedance-Admittance Control with Multi-Link Aerial Robot for Contact-Rich Surface Sliding Task

Zicheng Luo, Maolin Lei, Jinjie Li, Yicheng Chen+2

Department of Mechanical-Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan

Contact-Rich Robotic Manipulation Admittance Control Impedance Control Aerial Manipulation

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Multi-link aerial robots can actively deform their articulated structures during flight, giving them strong potential for aerial manipulation. However, they still face substantial challenges in contact-rich aerial manipulation tasks such as surface sliding, which requires both disturbance robustness and compliance to uncertain surface geometry. Force-control strategies such as impedance and admittance control are commonly employed to address these requirements. Although impedance control can provide disturbance-resistant interaction and admittance control can offer compliant adaptation, their opposite force--motion causalities prevent their simultaneous implementation when applied through the same actuation source, such as the rotor thrusts used by conventional aerial robots. To overcome this limitation, we propose a hybrid impedance--admittance control strategy for a multi-link aerial robot. The articulated morphology enables a functional separation of force and motion regulation across joint and rotor actuation sources. In this framework, admittance behavior is generated through joint angle regulation to enhance adaptive interaction, while impedance behavior is achieved by modulating rotor thrust to regulate the sliding motion. This structural coordination allows the robot to leverage the complementary strengths of both control paradigms. As a result, the multi-link aerial robot achieves resilient and adaptive surface sliding. Experimental results demonstrate robust and compliant sliding performance on unknown surfaces.

Abstract

Aerial Robotics

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