A modular aerial vehicle with redundant actuation

This work presents the design and experimental validation of a control strategy for an innovative modular aerial vehicle characterized by redundant actuation. For this class of aircraft, the distinguishing feature of the proposed design - which sets it apart from standard vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) underactuated configurations such as helicopters, ducted-fan tail-sitters or multi-rotors - is that the input redundancy can be employed to improve the dynamical properties of the system. In particular, the vehicle performance can be enhanced in certain applications that benefit from a larger number of degrees of freedom being simultaneously controlled. A control strategy is proposed which is capable of globally stabilizing the dynamics of this class of vehicles along a desired trajectory. The methodology is validated by means of experiments carried out on a special prototype obtained by rigidly connecting two ducted-fan tail-sitter UAVs.