Formation Planning for Tethered Multirotor UAV Cooperative Transportation With Unknown Payload and Cable Length

Abstract

This study investigates the formation planning problem of tethered multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cooperative transportation with unknown payload and cable length. Normally, the transportation formation and trajectory are given in advance or designed based on the coupled system model. It is challenging to dynamically generate flexible formations in response to changing environments when the payload and cable length are unknown. This paper proposes an online formation planning method for multirotor UAVs. First, by analyzing the tension on cables, we propose some formation criteria and further construct a corresponding performance function of optimization. Then, desired trajectories/formations that can reduce the cost functions are generated by using the admittance model. Next, an estimation-based formation tracking control is designed, which ensures that multirotor UAVs follow the desired trajectories/formations. Finally, numerical simulations and experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Note to Practitioners</i> —This paper is motivated by the formation planning problem of tethered multirotor UAV cooperative transportation. In industry and production applications, a team of multirotor UAVs has a larger load capacity than a single one. Nevertheless, the formation planning of the tethered cooperative transportation is challenging, especially when the payload and cable length are unknown. Rather than give a predefined formation or trajectory, this paper suggests an online formation planning method for multirotor UAVs in case of unknown payload and cable length. The method is implemented through the following three parts: 1) By analyzing the tension on cables, we propose some formation criteria and further construct a corresponding performance function of optimization. 2) By using the admittance model, we generate desired trajectories/formations that can minimize the proposed cost function. 3) By estimating cable tension, we design formation tracking control laws for multirotor UAVs to follow the desired trajectories/formations. The proposed formation planning method does not rely on the knowledge of the payload and length of cables, which makes it can be easily applied to extensive industry, production, and military practice. Finally, numerical simulations and experiments are conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.