Design and Control of an Omnidirectional Aerial Robot with a Miniaturized Haptic Joystick for Physical Interaction

Fully actuated aerial robots have shown superiority in Aerial Physical Interaction (APhI) in recent years. This work presents a minimal setup for aerial telemanipulation, improving accessibility to such technologies. The design and control of a 6-Degrees of Freedom (DoF) joystick with 4-DoF haptic feedback are detailed. It is the first haptic device with standard Remote Controller (RC) form factor for APhI. Miniaturizing the haptic device adds sense of touch to RC, enhancing physical awareness. The goal is to provide operators with an extra sense-beyond vision and sound-to support safe APhI. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first 6- DoF aerial teleoperation system capable of decoupling single-axis input commands. The proposed robot hardware design reduces number of components, aiming for easier maintenance and improved force and thrust-to-weight ratios. Open-source physics-based simulation and successful early flight tests high-light the tool's promise for future APhI applications.