Decentralized Leader-Follower Visual Cooperative Package Transportation using Unmanned Aerial Manipulators

This paper is concerned with the problem of cooperative transportation of payloads by teams of unmanned aerial multirotor vehicles equipped with dexterous robotic arms. In order to increase the autonomy of such systems, a leader-follower setting is implemented. The leader UAV dictates the motion and all other follower UAVs attempt to maintain their desired relative pose with respect to the leader. A fiducial marker structure is attached to the leader, which allows all followers to continuously visually track the leader. Each robotic arm is equipped with force-torque sensors at its end-effector for improving the UAVs’ flight stability. Specialized controllers are designed for the aerial manipulator systems, in order to ensure a compliant behavior against forces transmitted through the payload. Simulations are provided using the Gazebo environment in order to validate the proposed control methods.