Anthropomorphic, compliant and lightweight dual arm system for aerial manipulation

Abstract

This paper presents a low weight (1.3 kg), human size dual arm system with compliant joints designed for aerial manipulation with a multirotor platform. Each arm provides four degrees of freedom (DOF) for end effector positioning in a kinematic configuration close to the human arm: shoulder pitch, roll and yaw, and elbow pitch. The aluminum frame structure of the arms has been designed with a double purpose: protecting the servo actuators against direct impacts and overloads, and allowing the integration of a compliant transmission mechanism with deflection measurement between the servo shaft and the output link Mechanical joint compliance increases safety in the physical interactions with the environment, removing also joint overloads typical in closed kinematic chain configurations. The dual arm system has been integrated in a hexarotor platform with a visual servoing system for object grasping, evaluating its performance first in a fixed base test bench and later in outdoor flight tests.