Virtual Rigid Bodies for coordinated agile maneuvering of teams of micro aerial vehicles

Dingjiang Zhou, Mac Schwager

2015 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for controlling a team of quadrotor micro aerial vehicles to perform agile maneuvers while holding a ﬁxed relative formation, as well as transitioning between a sequence of formations. The objective is to coordinate the quadrotors to ﬂy in intricate interlaced patterns, similarly to an air show demonstration team. The paper proposes a new abstraction, called a Virtual Rigid Body, which allows the quadrotors to hold relative positions while executing agile maneuvers as a group. By planning trajectories for the Virtual Rigid Body in SE(3), trajectories for each quadrotor are obtained in order to maintain the desired formation during the maneuver. The paper also proposes a method for sequencing a series of Virtual Rigid Body formations, and automatically designing collision free transitions between successive formations, while the team simultaneously executes a trajectory in SE(3). The resulting sequence of formations and transitions gives trajectories that weave intricate designs while avoiding collisions. The method is demonstrated experimentally with three KMel K500 quadrotors ﬂying in a motion capture environment.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{zhou_virtual_2015,
  address = {Seattle, WA},
  title = {Virtual {Rigid} {Bodies} for coordinated agile maneuvering of teams of micro aerial vehicles},
  isbn = {978-1-4799-6923-4},
  url = {https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7139422/},
  abstract = {This paper proposes a method for controlling a team of quadrotor micro aerial vehicles to perform agile maneuvers while holding a ﬁxed relative formation, as well as transitioning between a sequence of formations. The objective is to coordinate the quadrotors to ﬂy in intricate interlaced patterns, similarly to an air show demonstration team. The paper proposes a new abstraction, called a Virtual Rigid Body, which allows the quadrotors to hold relative positions while executing agile maneuvers as a group. By planning trajectories for the Virtual Rigid Body in SE(3), trajectories for each quadrotor are obtained in order to maintain the desired formation during the maneuver. The paper also proposes a method for sequencing a series of Virtual Rigid Body formations, and automatically designing collision free transitions between successive formations, while the team simultaneously executes a trajectory in SE(3). The resulting sequence of formations and transitions gives trajectories that weave intricate designs while avoiding collisions. The method is demonstrated experimentally with three KMel K500 quadrotors ﬂying in a motion capture environment.},
  language = {en},
  urldate = {2020-09-15},
  booktitle = {2015 {IEEE} {International} {Conference} on {Robotics} and {Automation} ({ICRA})},
  publisher = {IEEE},
  author = {Zhou, Dingjiang and Schwager, Mac},
  month = may,
  year = {2015},
  keywords = {multi-robot, aerial, control},
  pages = {1737--1742},
  month_numeric = {5}
}