Modeling Hose Dynamics for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Bridges and other large pieces of infrastructure accumulate massive amounts of dirt, dust, and other particulates that can obscure the structure when scanning to discern structural integrity. Traditionally, these particulates have been removed by humans operating handheld compressed-air hoses, often while mounting ladders -- a risky and inefficient task. To improve infrastructure scanning, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) equipped with hoses could be used to clean the structure in place of the current method. The challenge in equipping a UAV with a hose is compensating for the reaction forces and torques produced by fluids expelled by the hose. In order to counteract these reaction forces and torques, the process should be carefully modeled and incorporated in the controller architecture

A Mechanically Intelligent Hosing-Drone

This manuscript presents a ”mechanically intelligent” approach to designing a Hosing-Drone for heavy-duty pressure washing. Spraying a hose creates strong reaction forces and torques. Previously demonstrated spraying robots are over-engineered to be very massive with huge inertias. These high inertias ”wash out” the reaction from the spraying. In the proposed approach, the contributions from all observable fluid dynamics, fluid structure interactions, and aerodynamics are studied individually and for the coupled system. Experimental data is collected and fit to dynamic models. These models are used to design a smaller, lighter, more agile vehicle than has been previously demonstrated. An impedance controller with virtual reference model is developed with inspiration from the classic ”hose under flow” fluid dynamics toy problem and ”crane-trolley” control problem. Results from simulation and field testing show proof-of-concept

Considerations for Hose Wielding UAV for Civil Infrastructure Cleaning

To expand the capabilities of a multi-rotor aerial vehicle, one or several hoses could be mounted to the vehicle. Such hoses could be used to expel compressed air or other fluid for the purpose of cleaning hard-to-reach surfaces. The main challenge in operating a hose mounted on a free-flying aerial vehicle is compensating for the reaction forces and torques the vehicle experiences as fluid leaves the hose. This paper introduces dynamic modeling for a hose mounted on a multi- rotor vehicle. It is shown that safe operating ranges can be defined in terms of hose angle and fluid PSI, with instability occurring outside of this bounded tool-space. Insights from model analysis are presented to help the reader apply key takeaways to vehicle and controller design