Design, control, and dynamic simulation of securing and transformation mechanisms for a hybrid ground aerial robot

A hybrid ground aerial robot (HGAR) has been developed to combine both capabilities of aerial robots and ground mobile robots to overcome the limitations of each single type. This research introduces a new securing mechanism and improves also the propeller-thruster transformation mechanism for the HGAR. The securing mechanism is designed to be light and to give high stability, and low power consumption for both flying and ground motion modes. In the developed transformation mechanism, the robot uses the propellers which are already installed for the aerial mission as actuators to transform between the flight and ground-motion configurations. In contrast to the previous design, no need here to additional position controller to avoid propellers' collision or springs to start the switch to the ground configuration. The propellers are controlled by the Feedback-Linearization which is combined with Robust-Internal Compensator to achieve the controller robustness. The HGAR is virtually built and dynamically modeled using ADAMS® software then connected with MATLAB/Simulink® to test the proposed mechanisms and the proposed controller. The results indicate a satisfactory performance of the proposed mechanisms and controller.