Strain-Parameterized Coupled Dynamics and Dual-Camera Visual Servoing for Aerial Continuum Manipulators

2026-03-24

AI Summary

This work addresses the computational complexity and frequent neglect of underactuation in existing dynamic models for aerial continuum manipulators. The authors propose a unified Lagrangian ordinary differential equation (ODE) framework that seamlessly integrates a strain-parameterized Cosserat rod model for the continuum arm with rigid-body UAV dynamics on SE(3), thereby circumventing cumbersome symbolic derivations. Furthermore, they design an adaptive dual-camera visual servoing controller with stability guarantees, effectively mitigating challenges arising from limited field of view, attitude disturbances, and model uncertainties. Comprehensive simulations and experiments using a custom-built prototype demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves high control performance and strong robustness in real-world scenarios.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Manipulation
• Computer Vision: Low Level & Physics-based Vision
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Mixed Discrete/Continuous Planning

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User modeling and simulation for interactive and conversational systems

Abstract

Tendon-driven aerial continuum manipulators (TD-ACMs) combine the maneuverability of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) with the compliance of lightweight continuum robots (CRs). Existing coupled dynamic modeling approaches for TD-ACMs incur high computational costs and do not explicitly account for aerial platform underactuation. To address these limitations, this paper presents a generalized dynamic formulation of a coupled TD-ACM with an underactuated base. The proposed approach integrates a strain-parameterized Cosserat rod model with a rigid-body model of the UAV into a unified Lagrangian ordinary differential equation (ODE) framework on $\mathrm{SE}(3)$, thereby eliminating computationally intensive symbolic derivations. Building upon the developed model, a robust dual-camera image-based visual servoing (IBVS) scheme is introduced. The proposed controller mitigates the field-of-view (FoV) limitations of conventional IBVS, compensates for attitude-induced image motion caused by UAV lateral dynamics, and incorporates a low-level adaptive controller to address modeling uncertainties with formal stability guarantees. Extensive simulations and experimental validation on a compact custom-built prototype demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed framework in real-world scenarios.

Problem

• aerial continuum manipulators
• coupled dynamics
• underactuation
• computational cost
• tendon-driven

Innovation

• strain-parameterized dynamics
• dual-camera visual servoing
• underactuated aerial continuum manipulator
• Cosserat rod model
• image-based visual servoing