A Switchable Unmanned Aerial Manipulator System for Window-Cleaning Robot Installation

Unmanned Aerial Manipulators (UAMs) have much potential for automating the cleaning of the high-rise windows. In this letter, a switchable UAM system is designed to carry out the high-rise cleaning task by installing a cleaning robot onto the window. The UAM system is divided into four phases: free-flight, attaching, delivery and detaching. Control methods are developed for all phases, and switch strategies between different phases are proposed. The results of outdoor window-cleaning robot installation experiments using the proposed UAM system demonstrate the effectiveness of our control methods and switch strategies.