Cooperative
Full Title
Cooperative Transport of Payloads Using DronesDescription
This project investigates the cooperative transport of suspended payloads using unmanned aerial vehicles, with a focus on a two-drone leader–follower configuration. The objective is to overcome the payload and autonomy limitations of individual drones by distributing the load between multiple aerial agents while ensuring formation stability, payload safety and controlled motion throughout the mission.
The proposed system combines vision-based formation control with active payload stabilization. Relative positioning between the drones is estimated using onboard cameras and AprilTag fiducial markers, while an additional vision-based controller monitors the suspended payload and mitigates oscillations during flight. The architecture includes formation control, payload damping and orientation control modules, designed to operate with onboard processing and limited communication between agents.
The project will be validated first in simulation and then through real outdoor flight tests, covering the full cooperative transport sequence: payload take-off, navigation between two points and controlled landing. The expected outcome is a modular and experimentally validated framework for cooperative aerial payload transportation, contributing to multi-UAV systems, cyber-physical systems and autonomous robotic coordination.