Survey on Aerial Manipulator Systems

Aerial manipulator system (AMS) is a new type of robot system with active operating capability, which is composed of aerial robot (usually rotor flying robot, RFR) and the operating device (manipulator).However, there exist some challenging academic problems in AMS research due to the strong dynamics coupling between the manipulator and the RFR, and the sensitivity of the RFR to the external interference, such as the modeling and stabilization problem due to the center-of-gravity changing caused by the relative movement between the manipulator and the RFR, the coordinated control problem of the RFR and the manipulator, the steady control problem of the system when the arm contacting with the environment, as well as the kinematic and dynamic planning problems.This paper presents the review of achievements and progresses about the dynamic modeling, coupling analysis and autonomous control on the AMS according to the recently published literatures, and points out the critical problems in the research in detail and the key challenging problems and some future research directions.