In this video, we present an autonomous quadrotor system equipped with a winch-tethered magnet
that is capable of anchoring to a vertical surface with only onboard sensing and computation.
The tensile force is utilized to descend to a fully vertical position,
land on and slide along the surface for inspection at close proximity.
In this work, the quadrotor state and interaction force are estimated in real-time using onboard visual and inertial information.
The knowledge of a target inspection location is assumed and utilized to
generate on-line trajectories.
We demonstrate a planning and control strategy that leverages multi-modal
mobility
for close proximity inspection scenarios inside and outside our lab.
To the best of our knowledge,
this presents the first realization of a tethered quadrotor
that can hover and perch vertically near
infrastructure elements, enabling a variety of surface manipulation and repair tasks.
