ADAPT: A 3 Degrees of Freedom Reconfigurable Force Balanced Parallel Manipulator for Aerial Applications

In this paper, we present the ADAPT, a novel reconfigurable force-balanced parallel manipulator for spatial motions and interaction capabilities underneath a drone. The reconfigurable aspect allows different motion-based 3-DoF op- eration modes like translational, rotational, planar, and so on, without the need for disassembly. For the purpose of this study, the manipulator is used in translation mode only. A kinematic model is developed and validated for the manipulator. The design and motion capabilities are also validated both by conducting dynamics simulations of a simplified model on MSC ADAMS, and experiments on the physical setup. The force-balanced nature of this novel design decouples the motion of the manipulator’s end-effector from the base, zeroing the reaction forces, making this design ideally suited for aerial manipulation applications, or generic floating-base applications.