Cooperative Transportation of a Flexible Payload Using Two Quadrotors
Ti Chen，Jinjun Shan，Hugh H.T. Liu
Abstract: The transportation of a flexible beam using two quadrotors was studied in this paper. The payload was connected to the quadrotor bodies rigidly. Considering the bending deformation of the beam, a nonlinear dynamics model was developed for the transportation system. Based on the definition of fictitious outputs in the near-hover configuration, it can be concluded that one can control the positions of the middle point of two quadrotors, the yaw angle of the first quadrotor, and the beam deformation using eight propellers of these two quadrotors. An augmented linearized system was constructed to design controller based on the feedback of the system state and the integrals of the tracking errors of partial generalized coordinates. Numerical simulations show that the controller with integral terms can eliminate the steady-state error in position and yaw angle tracking. Experimental results indicate that the designed controller can drive the transportation system to the desired position with a satisfactory tracking performance.
