• Energy Research

In this brief, we propose a passivity-based control design for a rolling-balancing system called the disk-on-disk (DoD). The stabilization of the desired equilibrium is obtained via energy shaping and damping injection. The DoD is an underactuated mechanical system composed of two disks arranged one on top of the other. The top disk, which we call the object, is free to roll without slipping on the lower disk, which we call the hand. The hand is actuated by a controlled torque, while the object is unactuated. The control objective is to balance the object at the upright position and drive the hand to a desired angle. We design an energy shaping controller without solving the partial differential equations, which rise from the matching equation. We assess the performance of the controller by both simulations and experiment results, which also verify the practical applicability of the design approach.

Energy grids represent a fundamental infrastructure of any country. These structures consist of many kilometres of power lines that must be periodically inspected and maintained. Among the necessary operations are installing and removing bird diverters to reduce bird strikes on power lines. These devices are intended to improve birds’ detection of power lines and reduce the risk of collision. Often, the installation and removal of bird diverters from power lines is accomplished by humans operating from helicopters or directly on the power lines. Apart from the considerable cost of these operations, working in elevated environments creates human safety risks. To reduce these risks, this paper proposes a novel solution to automatize these tasks. The proposed solution is a prototype gripper that can be mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and remotely operated to install or remove bird diverters. This work presents a mechatronic device and software architecture system that is experimentally evaluated in a laboratory mock-up, which consists of a manipulator equipped with the proposed tool for removing a bird diverter. Future work is needed to deploy the proposed tool on a UAV.