Regular Virtual Tube for Cooperative Transportation of a Payload by Multiple Quadrotors
Jiacheng Tang, Zixiao Yang, Lei Zhang, Tianjiang Hu, Bo Zhu · Journal of Systems Engineering and Electronics · 2025
How multi-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying a payload pass an obstacle-dense environment is practically important. Up to now, there have been few results on safe motion planning for the multi-UAVs cooperative transportation system (CTS) to pass through such an environment. The problem is challenging because it is difficult to analyze and explicitly take into account the swing motion of the payload in planning. In this paper, a modeling method of virtual tube is proposed by fusing the advantages of the existing modeling algorithm for regular virtual tube and the expansion environment method. The proposed method can not only generate a safe and smooth tube for UAVs, but also ensure the payload stays away from the dense obstacles. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the method and the safety of the planned tube.