On the Human Control of a Multiple Quadcopters with a Cable-suspended Payload System

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Abstract:A quadcopter is an under-actuated system with only four control inputs for six degrees of freedom, and yet the human control of a quadcopter is simple enough to be learne...View more

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Abstract:

A quadcopter is an under-actuated system with only four control inputs for six degrees of freedom, and yet the human control of a quadcopter is simple enough to be learned with some practice. In this work, we consider the problem of human control of a multiple quadcopters system to transport a cable-suspended payload. The coupled dynamics of the system, due to the inherent physical constraints, is used to develop a leader-follower architecture where the leader quadcopter is controlled directly by a human operator and the followers are controlled with the proposed Payload Attitude Controller and Cable Attitude Controller. Experiments, where a human operator flew a two quadcopters system to transport a cable-suspended payload, were conducted to study the performance of proposed controller. The results demonstrated successful implementation of human control in these systems. This work presents the possibility of enabling manual control for on-the-go maneuvering of the quadcopter-payload system which motivates aerial transportation in the unknown environments.

Published in: 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

Date of Conference: 31 May-31 Aug. 2020

Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 15 September 2020

ISBN Information:

ISSN Information:

INSPEC Accession Number: 19987298

DOI: 10.1109/ICRA40945.2020.9197279

Conference Location: Paris, France

Contents

I. INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the technological advancement in electronics has led to the development of small, light-weight, and cheap Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with quadcopter being the most popular configuration. Despite being an under-actuated system, the manual control of a quadcopter is quite simple and can be learned with some practice as seen in high speed First Person View (FPV) [1] drone racing where a human operator performs extremely agile maneuvers with great expertise. With the addition of a cable-suspended payload, the manual control of a quadcopter is possible but may require a lot of practice for the operator to develop the coupled dynamics intuition. However, if the onboard controller can compensate the payload dynamics then human control of the system can be achieved with relative ease. This approach can further be extended to human control of a multiple quadcopters collaboratively transporting a cable-suspended payload system. Such a capability can be very useful for applications involving agriculture, warehouses, and impromptu payload transport tasks.