Multi-objective control for cooperative payload transport with rotorcraft UAVs

Javier Gimenez; Daniel C Gandolfo; Lucio R Salinas; Claudio Rosales; Ricardo Carelli

doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2018.05.022

Multi-objective control for cooperative payload transport with rotorcraft UAVs

ISA Trans. 2018 Sep:80:491-502. doi: 10.1016/j.isatra.2018.05.022. Epub 2018 Jun 1.

Authors

Javier Gimenez¹, Daniel C Gandolfo², Lucio R Salinas², Claudio Rosales², Ricardo Carelli²

Affiliations

¹ Instituto de Automática, Universidad Nacional de San Juan-CONICET, Argentina. Electronic address: jgimenez@inaut.unsj.edu.ar.
² Instituto de Automática, Universidad Nacional de San Juan-CONICET, Argentina.

PMID: 29866578
DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2018.05.022

Abstract

A novel kinematic formation controller based on null-space theory is proposed to transport a cable-suspended payload with two rotorcraft UAVs considering collision avoidance, wind perturbations, and properly distribution of the load weight. An accurate 6-DoF nonlinear dynamic model of a helicopter and models for flexible cables and payload are included to test the proposal in a realistic scenario. System stability is demonstrated using Lyapunov theory and several simulation results show the good performance of the approach.

Keywords: Cooperative transport; Lyapunov theory; Multi-objective control; Null-space; Rotorcraft UAV.