A Novel Quadrotor With a 3-Axis Deformable Frame Using Tilting Motions of Parallel Link Modules Without Thrust Loss

We propose a novel quadrotor with a 3-axis deformable frame using parallel link modules. By adding three servo motors to the frame, it has two configurations, namely, roll-pitch deformation mode and yaw deformation mode. In the roll-pitch deformation mode, it can tilt and fold the frame in the roll and pitch directions independently, which gives it 6 controllable degrees of freedom (CDOF). In the yaw deformation mode, it can contract the whole frame in the yaw direction. We propose a design method without thrust loss at any deformed state in both modes. In experiments, we show that it can fly stably even when deformed in both modes by the extended conventional control method. Furthermore, its applications are presented to demonstrate its high versatility.