Akinori Sakaguchi

I am a assistant professor at the Research Institute of Advanced Electric Propulsion Aircrafts, Kyushu University. The research interest is in deformable quadrotors. A conventional quadrotor is the simplest configuration with four rotors arranged on a fixed frame, but it has high maneuverability such as hovering. However, it has only 4 controllable Degrees of Freedom (DoF) and cannot control its position and attitude independently. To improve and enhance its capability, I have proposed and developed novel quadrotors with deformable frames by introducing tilting mechanisms to the conventionally fixed frame. Here, I aim to propose novel quadrotors that achieve both a high controllable DoF and high deformability, using as few additional actuators as possible while avoiding loss of rotor thrusts. See research topics for more details.

Please contact me at e-mail: sakaguchi@ees.kyushu-u.ac.jp to discuss collaborative research in the above field.

We propose a novel quadrotor with a 3-axis deformable frame using parallel link modules. By adding three servo motors to the frame, it has two configurations, namely, roll-pitch deformation mode and yaw deformation mode. In the roll-pitch deformation mode, it can tilt and fold the frame in the roll and pitch directions independently, which gives it 6 Degrees of Freedom (DoF). In the yaw deformation mode, it can contract the whole frame in the yaw direction. We propose a design method without thrust loss at any deformed state in both modes. In experiments, we show that it can fly stably even when deformed in both modes by the extended conventional control method. Furthermore, its applications are presented to demonstrate its high versatility. See the webpage for details.

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