Fast and Accurate Contact Wrench Estimation for Multirotors Via Decoupled Aerodynamics

Real-time and precise contact wrench estimation is essential for autonomous multirotors to enhance performance in tasks such as aerial manipulation and payload transportation. Most existing research neglects the aerodynamic interference during flights, resulting in intrinsic discrepancies between the estimated external wrench and the actual contact wrench. To address this issue, we introduce a contact wrench estimation method based on an optimal filter framework. Our approach explicitly models linear aerodynamic effects, thereby ensuring the decoupling of airflow disturbances from contact wrenches. We rigorously verify the observability of the system through Lie derivatives and present a system identification algorithm for aerodynamic parameters. Comprehensive simulations and real-world experiments demonstrate that the proposed method effectively mitigates aerodynamic interference, providing fast and accurate contact wrench estimation for multirotors.