iRonCub FOR AERIAL HUMANOID ROBOTICS
We give humanoid the ability to fly
In light of the above, the current state of the art in robotics lacks a platform able to combine the following capabilities:
- Manipulation: to open doors, move objects, close valves;
- Aerial locomotion: to perform outdoor inspection and to move from one building to another;
- Bipedal terrestrial locomotion: to perform indoor inspection and climb stairs.
Hence, we define aerial humanoid robotics as the outcome of the platforms having the three above capacities.
To implement the aerial humanoid robotics onto the humanoid robot iCub, we carry out research activities along with different directions.
We research on Lyapunov-quadratic-programming based control algorithms to regulate both the attitude and the position of the humanoid robot. The control algorithms work independently from the number of jet turbines installed on the robot, and ensure also that the satisfaction of some physical constraints associated with the jet engines (e.g., maximum derivative and positivity of the thrust, minimum and maximum robot joint angles).
To implement the aerial humanoid robotics on the real iCub, we need experimental activities aimed at modeling and identification of the jet turbines. For this reason, we have developed a sophisticated test bench for identifying the input/output relationship of the jet turbines.
The aerodynamics of a single rigid body is a complex matter. Consequently, dealing with the aerodynamics of a multi-body system - as a flying humanoid robot is - leaves little space for closed form expressions of the aerodynamic effects, and it is not what we aim to do. So, our approach to evaluate the aerodynamic effects on the flying humanoid robot is to perform CFD simulations using Ansys, and then extract a simplified model to use in the control design.