# QuadHand: A Compact Quadrotor Aerial Manipulator with MRC-SDF-Based Whole-Body Motion Planning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35094 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.35094/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Sep 2026.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [From Local Whole-Body VLA Behaviors to Scene-Scale Aerial Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39670/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Uncrewed aerial manipulators (UAMs) integrate robotic arms with aerial platforms for three-dimensional physical interaction. However, enlarging the workspace increases arm-induced disturbances, while existing geometric representations face a trade-off between geometric fidelity and computational efficiency in close-proximity interaction. This paper presents QuadHand, a compact quadrotor aerial manipulator with a 3-DoF arm, gripper, and battery-assisted passive CoG compensation module to reduce dominant arm-induced disturbances. We further propose MRC-SDF, a Multi-articulated Robot-Centric Signed Distance Field that preserves fine geometric detail with tractable computation, and a spatiotemporal whole-body trajectory optimization framework that jointly optimizes the quadrotor and manipulator for safe and executable trajectory generation. Simulations and real-world experiments demonstrate safe and executable aerial manipulation in complex environments.