Preliminary control design on spherically-connected multiple-quadrotor manipulator system

We introduce a new aerial manipulator system that consists of an airborne base actuated by multiple spherically-connected quadrotors and a manipulator rigidly connected to that base. We first model the dynamics of the system and show that attitude dynamics of each quadrotor is decoupled from the base-manipulator dynamics. Therefore, we can consider the quadrotors as thrusters to control the base-manipulator dynamics. We then use Lyapunov approach to design a pose-tracking control for the end-effector of the manipulator and optimally distribute that control to each quadrotor on the base and each joint rotor on the manipulator. The simulation of a system of three quadrotors and a 2 degree-of-freedom (DOF) manipulator is presented to support the theory.