In-flight Capture Maneuver of Drones Using Model Predictive Control

This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC) strategy to enable a rotary-wing shuttle drone to cooperatively capture a fixed-wing target drone during flight and place it in the ground safely. Simplified models of the two types of drones are presented, along with simple controller for the each vehicle. The developed strategy defines a simple nonlinear MPC problem that models the relative dynamics between the two drones, enabling the capture maneuver without a preassigned trajectory or rendezvous point. Simulation results demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed cooperative capture strategy, whereas experimental trials with a real shuttle and a simulated target validate the hardware and software integration of the developed system, showing promising performance.