Modeling and Control of an Aerial Multi-Cargo System: Robust Acquiring and Transport Operations

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the concept of a multilink unmanned aerial system (ML-UAS) designed for multicargo transportation tasks. Such a system features three links who are actuated by four flying robots. We present in detail the dynamics modeling based on the Euler-Lagrange formulation. A preliminary control scheme based on robust Adaptive Integral Sliding Mode Control (AISMC) is applied considering the ML-UAS model uncertainties and external disturbances. The control objective is to follow/track avian-inspired acquiring patterns for acquiring operations. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is validated by numerical simulations.

Corridor 3D Navigation of a Fully-Actuated Multirotor by Means of Bee-Inspired Optic Flow Regulation

“…T stands as the conjugate of q d and ⊗ denotes the quaternion multiplication. To achieve q d , AI-SMCs [24], [26] were implemented. In this vein, the sliding surfaces read as:…”

Nonlinear Control of a Multilink Aerial System and ASEKF-Based Disturbances Compensation

“…The system proposed herein consists in three quadrotors physically interlinked through two rods ( Fig.1). Aerial transportation, manipulation and deployment is possible through 1-DoF robotic manipulators, whose joints are located at the CoG of the rods [16], [21], [22]. For pedagogical purposes, we restrict our analysis to the longitudinal dynamics (see Fig.2) where d i with i = 1, 2, 3 stands for the aerial subsystems, l j ∈ IR + corresponds to the Figure 1: 3D CAD Scheme of the multi-link system Figure 2: Longitudinal simplified scheme of the multi-link system j th -link and p j indicates the pendulum-like robotic-arm system whose length is denoted as l p j with j = 1, 2.…”

“…The force f i ∈ IR, drives the i th vehicle within the longitudinal space. In fact, the rotorcrafts serve as the actuators thus they are considered in the Lagrangian-based modeling of the system [21], [22]. The reference tracking point of the system w.r.t.…”

“…An alternative perspective is adopted by [20] which addresses the transportation problem considering multiple cargo morphing aerial robot to successfully cope with the center of gravity (CoG) shifting resulting from the loads/vehicles motion. Taking inspiration from serial configurations as manipulators robots or trains, the authors of [21] and [22] detail the modeling and control of an aerial serial kinematic chain of n quadrotors liked via n − 1 rigid rods. Respectively, it is presented a robust control strategy to solve the problem of multi-cargo acquisition and transportation, and the implementation of a linear Kalman filter (LKF) considering an augmented state to enhance the robustness of the transportation task control while tracking a time-based trajectory.…”

Distributed Event-Based Sliding-Mode Consensus Control in Dynamic Formation for VTOL-UAVs

“…However, for applications where unknown disturbances may be present, robust controllers need to be implemented. In this context, the Sliding-Mode Control (SMC) [14], [15], which is known for its inherent robustness can be implemented in multi-agent systems. On this subject, an adaptive sliding mode control law was developed and proved through simulation results [16], where the flight stability of a group of VTOL-UAVs exposed to constant and bounded disturbances was improved.…”