Dynamic stability and control of a manipulating unmanned aerial vehicle

Abstract

This paper focuses on the dynamic stability analysis of a manipulator mounted on a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle, namely, a manipulating unmanned aerial vehicle (MUAV). Manipulator movements and environments interaction will extremely affect the dynamic stability of the MUAV system. So the dynamic stability analysis of the MUAV system is of paramount importance for safety and satisfactory performance. However, the applications of Lyapunov's stability theory to the MUAV system have been extremely limited, due to the lack of a constructive method available for deriving a Lyapunov function. Thus, Lyapunov exponent method and impedance control are introduced, and the Lyapunov exponent method can establish the quantitative relationships between the manipulator movements and the dynamics stability, while impedance control can reduce the impact of environmental interaction on system stability. Numerical simulation results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.