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CEAS EuroGNC 2026

Contact Force Simulation and Reduction during Robot Assisted Landings of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Jannes Terlau Research Assistant, FH Aachen, Faculty of Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, 52064 Aachen, Germany.
Philipp Kremer Research Assistant, FH Aachen, Faculty of Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, 52064 Aachen, Germany.
Tobias Ostermann Professor, FH Aachen, Faculty of Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, 52064 Aachen, Germany.
Philipp Hartmann Professor, FH Aachen, Faculty of Aerospace and Automotive Engineering, 52064 Aachen, Germany.
Abstract:
This paper presents an approach on contact force simulation and subsequent reduction during robot-assisted landings of unmanned aerial vehicles. The considered landings are performed using a serial kinematic industrial robot with a custom gripper. The goal is to investigate robot-assisted landings for heavier and larger combinations of unmanned aerial vehicles and industrial robots. For that, a multi-body simulation including all involved subsystems is developed, enabling the analysis of the physical interaction between robot and aircraft during the robot-assisted landing. The simulation features contact force calculation capabilities, applying the linear Kelvin-Voigt contact model. The results show an initial rise in contact forces that might pose a structural problem for robot or aircraft. Therefore, the paper proposes an approach on contact force reduction by reducing the relative speed between UAV and gripper at impact. The multi-body simulation is verified based on exemplarily contact situations. By reducing the impact speed, the contact forces are reduced considerably.
Keywords: Contact Force Simulation; Robot Assisted Landing; Unmanned Aerial Vehicle; Multi-Body Simulation
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-078 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-078


Jannes Terlau, Philipp Kremer, Tobias Ostermann, Philipp Hartmann: Contact Force Simulation and Reduction during Robot Assisted Landings of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-078.
BibTeX entry (UTF-8):

@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-078,
    author = {Terlau, Jannes and Kremer, Philipp and Ostermann, Tobias and Hartmann, Philipp},
    title = {Contact Force Simulation and Reduction during Robot Assisted Landings of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles},
    booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
    address = {Madrid, Spain},
    month = may,
    year = {2026},
    doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-078}
}