Cooperative Object Transportation by Multiple Ground and Aerial Vehicles: Modeling and Planning

Abstract

In this paper the modeling and planning problems of a system composed of multiple ground and aerial robots involved in a transportation task are considered. The ground robots rigidly grasp a load, while the aerial vehicles are attached to the object through non-rigid inextensible cables. The idea behind such a heterogeneous multi-robot system is to benefit of the advantages of both types of robots that might be the precision of ground robots, the increased payload of multiple aerial vehicles and their larger workspace. The overall model of the system is derived and its expression and redundancy are exploited by setting a general constrained optimal planning problem. The problem is herein solved by dynamic programming and simulation results validated the proposed scheme.