Unmanned Aerial Transportation System With Flexible Connection Between the Quadrotor and the Payload: Modeling, Controller Design, and Experimental Validation

Aerial delivery is becoming a reality due to the development of microelectronics and communication technology. Most existing methods for cable-suspended transportation systems utilize fixed-length cable to connect the unmanned aerial vehicle quadrotor and the payload. Such aerial transportation systems present underactuated property, which is caused by the indirectly controllable payload motion and the underactuation of the quadrotor itself. In practical applications, payload hoisting and lowering motion independent of the quadrotor altitude will further expand the application scope in such areas as limited space crossing and offshore sample collection. To realize the aforementioned objectives, a flexible connection between the quadrotor and the payload is realized by mounting an actuator beneath the fuselage. Suffering from strong nonlinearity and complex dynamic coupling, the control problem becomes extremely challenging and more cumbersome, as the system’s degree of freedom (DOF) increases. To deal with these problems, in this article, a nonlinear control approach is presented by energy-based analysis, which achieves simultaneous quadrotor positioning, payload swing elimination and hoisting / lowering. Lyapunov techniques and LaSalle’s Invariance theorem are utilized to prove the asymptotic convergence of the equilibrium point. Finally, a series of hardware experiments are conducted on a self-built aerial transportation platform. As far as we know, this article provides the first mechanism and control solution for payload hoisting/lowering independent of the quadrotor altitude.