Autonomous Removing Foreign Objects for Power Transmission Line by Using a Vision-Guided Unmanned Aerial Manipulator

This paper considers a problem that visual servo control for an aerial manipulator removes foreign objects of power transmission lines. A position-based visual servoing (PBVS) combing a foreign objects locating method based on the point cloud with a hierarchical task-priority control method is employed to drive the aerial manipulator to remove the foreign object. Firstly, the RGB-D camera mounted on the drone obtains the point cloud of the environment, and the foreign object will be localized by the detection and localization algorithm. Then, a new visual servo error is proposed to decouple linear speed and angular speed, allowing the aerial manipulator to grasp accurately in the dangerous environment. In addition, the redundant characteristics of the aerial manipulator will be fully used by the hierarchical task priority control scheme. Finally, experimental results of a drone equipped with a 4-DOF delta manipulator removing foreign objects of power transmission line are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the control method.