Tests of A Novel Haptic Interface for Aerial Robot Teleoperation: I. Pole inspection
A novel haptic interface is implemented here to enable the pilot to perceive the vehicle's dynamics as well as the environment when contact happens.
no obstacle avoidance force is applied since we want to touch the pole to feel the contact.
A VICON system is used to provide the absolute position and attitude measurements, the vehicle however does not have a position controller but a velocity controller since the mismatch between workspaces of master and slave compromises the vehicle's ability to move far.
A Novint Falcon 3D haptic joystick is used as the master system and a mikrokopter quadrotor is used as the flying platform. Onboard vision system is used to provide pilot with real time images in robot's body fixed frame. A carbon fiber ring is attached to the vehicle to prevent the possible damage to either flyer or the poles, as well as acts as the reference in the image to show the contact.
This work is presented by Xiaolei Hou, Ph.D candidate, Research school of engineering at Australian National University, supervised by Prof. Robert Mahony.