Hament, Blake (University of Nevada, Las Vegas), Oh, Paul (University of Nevada Las Vegas)

A Pressure Washing Hosing-Drone – Mitigating Reaction Forces and Torques

Scheduled for presentation during the Regular Session "UAS Applications I" (WeB5), Wednesday, June 22, 2022, 16:50−17:10, Elafiti

2022 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), June 21-24, 2022, Dubrovnik, Croatia

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on May 9, 2025

Abstract

In order to keep workers out of harm's way and to improve the efficiency of infrastructure cleaning and inspection, a Hosing-Drone is proposed. The main challenge to implementing high pressure spraying with a UAV is compensating for the strong reaction forces and torques. Hose dynamics are explored with a series of experiments involving a free hose under high pressure flow in an infrared tracking testbed, an actuated hose with nozzle controlled via a gantry testbed, and with early field testing of the UAS. Analytic models for the dynamics are proposed and fit to experimental data. A simple control law inspired by the classic 'cart-pendulum' problem is presented for eliminating swing in the dangling hose.