# Winged Aerial Manipulation Robot with Dual Arm and Tail
## 2 Design of Winged Aerial Robot with Dual Arm and Tail  
### Concept Design and Intended Applications  
As stated in the introduction, this paper is focused on the design and development of a winged aerial manipulator that employs a dual arm system for dexterous manipulation tasks and as a morphing wing mechanism, covering the whole body of the robot with a light nylon cloth to create aerodynamic surfaces (see Figure 1). In this sense, the dual arm and tail can be used to control the aerodynamic wrenches acting over the robot in flight as well as the position of the center of mass by changing its pose and, thus, the trajectory followed during the gliding maneuver [16]. The kinematic configuration of the dual arm (detailed in Section 3) allows the flapping of the wings in a similar way to birds in order to generate a lift force [17], although this is out of the scope of this paper, focused on the gliding while providing dexterous manipulation in perching conditions [7].  
The potential applications of winged aerial manipulation robots are determined by their features and capabilities, indicated in Table 2 and compared with respect to the aerial manipulators built with multirotor platforms [5,22]. Some illustrative application examples in which this new kind of aerial robot may be useful include the following:  
* Search and rescue of injured people in places of difficult access such as mountains or forests, using the arms to take measurements of the temperature, heartbeat, or breath of the person, placing the sensors at the appropriate points.
* Inspection and maintenance of vast infrastructures like power lines, or wind and solar farms, performing typical measurements at points of interest for detecting surface corrosion, leaks, or damaged components.
* Delivery and retrieval of medicines, tools, or small devices, requiring close interaction with humans or the environment without the risk of injury or damage.
* Spread seeds for growing plants, perch on trees for monitoring and tracking bird activities (migration, nesting, breeding), or analyze soil pH.  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Multirotor Aerial Manipulator**} & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Winged Aerial Manipulator**} \\ \hline \multirow{5}{*}{Benefits} & ✓ & Possibility to hover & ✓ & Safe in close interactions \\  & ✓ & High maneuverability & ✓ & Very low weight \\  & ✓ & Accurate position control & ✓ & Higher energy efficiency \\ \hline \multirow{5}{*}{Drawbacks} & \multirow{5}{*}{\(\blackdiamond\)} & \multirow{5}{*}{Risk in close interactions} & \multirow{5}{*}{\(\blackdiamond\)} & \multirow{5}{*}{Lower} \\  & & & Low energy efficiency & & force/payload capacity \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{4-4}  & & & & More complex dynamics \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{4-4}  & & & Noisy due to propellers & & and control \\ \cline{1-1} \cline{4-4}  & & & & Requires take-off mechanism \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2: Benefits and drawbacks of multirotor-based and winged aerial manipulators.  
The inherent safety of the WAMR, associated with its very low weight and the gliding/flapping flying modes, makes this kind of aerial platform especially suitable for operations involving close interaction with people or the environment, avoiding the risk of injuries/damage to multirotors.