Model Predictive Control for an Aerial Manipulator Opening a Hinged Door

Aerial manipulation has been widely studied to be employed in various tasks such as exploration and transportation. To incorporate aerial manipulation into more sophisticated tasks like pulling or pushing a heavy cargo, an active interaction with surrounding structures should be considered. Unlike physical contact with a static structure which was mainly studied in previous papers, interaction with a movable structure requires a consideration of dynamics of the structure which makes the scenario more complex. In this paper, an aerial manipulator opening a hinged door is presented. Coupled dynamics between an aerial manipulator and a hinged door is derived, and a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm using iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (iLQR) method for the derived dynamic equation is proposed. Through our proposed control strategy, sub-optimal state and input trajectories robust to model uncertainties while satisfying input constraints are generated. Our dynamic model and control algorithm are validated through simulations.