6-DOF Automated Flight Testing Using a Humanoid Robot Arm

In this research, we propose a novel solution for automated flight testing that facilitates the design, control, and application of DAVs by accurately emulating the free flight environment while ensuring safety. In our platform, the vehicle is mounted to the end-effector of an articulated robot manipulator through a 6-axis force/torque sensor. Then, a dual-module control scheme is developed to drive the manipulator to follow the movement of the vehicle. The regular module implements a damping force control law with feedforward compensation to emulate the free flight environment by maintaining a zero interaction force/torque between the robot end-effector and the vehicle in 6 degrees of freedom (DOF). In the safety module, a safety algorithm is designed to confine the movement of the vehicle within a predefined safe region, so that the collision to objects and injury to humans can be avoided. With the proposed dual-module control structure, a safe and realistic 6-DOF free flight emulation can be achieved. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate the applicability of our proposed scheme.