Task-Adaptive Design of Modular Aerial Manipulators Under Airflow Exposure Constraints

2026-07-10

AI Summary

This work addresses the challenge that downwash airflow from multirotor aerial manipulation platforms often disrupts airflow-sensitive targets during operation, thereby limiting their physical interaction capabilities. To overcome this, the authors propose a task-oriented, modular design optimization framework for aerial manipulators that explicitly models and constrains airflow exposure while ensuring task feasibility in terms of required forces and moments as well as end-effector positioning accuracy. Innovatively, the target’s airflow tolerance is translated into geometric constraints, enabling, for the first time, the joint optimization of end-effector pose and platform configuration. A compact cone-sphere envelope model is introduced to efficiently represent the rotor-induced airflow field. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly reduces airflow disturbance across various task loads while maintaining excellent manipulation performance.

Abstract

Aerial manipulation with multirotor platforms enables physical interaction in complex environments, but rotor-induced airflow remains a critical limitation for tasks involving airflow-sensitive targets or surroundings. This paper presents an optimization-based design framework for modular aerial manipulators that jointly considers task wrench feasibility, end-effector placement, and airflow exposure constraints. We first introduce a novel categorization of target-side airflow tolerance and formulate the corresponding exposure requirements as geometric constraints. To efficiently model rotor-induced airflow, we introduce a compact cone-sphere envelope that approximates the spreading structure of a quadrotor's airflow while preserving computational tractability for optimization. Building on this formulation, we propose a reconfiguration optimization that adapts a modular aerial manipulator to diverse task wrench requirements while enforcing both target-side airflow exposure and intra-platform airflow interference constraints. Unlike prior designs that assume a fixed end-effector location, the proposed framework optimizes the end-effector placement together with the platform configuration. Scalability experiments and ablation studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Problem

• aerial manipulation
• airflow exposure
• modular design
• task adaptation
• multirotor platforms

Innovation

• aerial manipulation
• airflow exposure constraints
• modular reconfiguration
• cone-sphere airflow envelope
• task-adaptive design