Dynamics and control of cable-drogue system in aerial recovery of Micro Air Vehicles based on Gauss´s Principle

This paper presents a new concept for aerial recovery of micro air vehicles (ARMAVs) using a large mothership and a recovery drogue. The mothership drags a drogue attached to a cable and the drogue is controlled to match the flight patten of the MAV. This paper uses Gauss´s principle to derive the dynamic model of the cable-drogue systems. A controllable drogue plays a key role in recovering MAVs in windy conditions.We develop a control approach for the drogue using its drag coefficient. Simulation results based on multi-link cable-drogue systems present the feasibility of the aerial recovery concept and the controllability of the drogue.