Modeling and control of a novel Hybrid Ground Aerial Robot

Abstract

This paper presents the dynamic modeling and control simulation of a novel robot that combines flying motion and on ground motion into an integrated single robot. The ground motion is based on four wheels configuration that provides more stability. The flying motion is depending on the flying mechanism of quadrotor system. Smart transformation mechanism is developed to switch the robot from the ground motion configuration to the flying motion configuration and vice versa without adding any additional actuators. A manipulator with 3 DOF is added to handle an object during the ground motion and it is useful to hold this object during the flying motion. A CAD model is developed using SOLIDWORKS. The dynamic model of this robot is derived to achieve the eccentricity of the payload, the weight of the eccentric manipulator and managing the variation of the payload in the dynamic model. The derived robot dynamics are highly nonlinear. A controller is designed based on feedback linearization technique to stabilize the robot attitude and altitude. Controlling the horizontal movements' nonholonomic constraints is used to generate the desired trajectories of robot attitudes. Another dynamic model and controller have been established for the transformation mechanism. Finally, the simulation results using MATLAB/SIMULINK show that the controller successfully vanish the eccentric effect and stabilize the robot attitude.