Simulation of centroid control for payload transport using cooperative unmanned aerial vehicle team on a virtual environment

• Main Authors: Bulda, Lourdes Racielle B., Marasigan, Matthew Zandrick G., Navarro, Isabel F., Valdes, Victor Antonio R.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2021
• Subjects: Drone aircraft—Control systems; Loaders (Machines); Controls and Control Theory; Electrical and Electronics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdb_ece/4; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=etdb_ece
• Institution: De La Salle University

With the rapid advancement of technology, the functionality of drones has become more diverse. The use of drones can extend to different fields of work such as disaster management, agriculture, and load delivery to name a few [1]. Its usage for quick load delivery is ideal for situations where the destination of the load is blocked by obstacles that a land vehicle would not be able to pass through. Drones can bring great convenience for the delivery of supplies in remote areas where it would normally be difficult to travel to because of their quick access to such areas. Such Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been developed to be used for load lifting [2]. It has now evolved with the vehicles being more flexible on the weight that it can transport [3]. Similar to this, the use of multiple UAVs concerning this has also progressed. Through a fleet of quadcopters, it can be manipulated or adjusted depending on what purpose it will be used for. This study will focus on developing a system that would make a team of multiple drones work cooperatively to lift and balance a marker on a load while it is being transported. The load to be used is a model platform designed which is assumed to be rigid. It has the dimensions of 30 cm by 30 cm, and thickness of 1 cm. The marker should be contained within the area of the platform to prevent it from falling throughout its movement to its destination. The drones need a system wherein its flight patterns would be well-coordinated in order for them to achieve their main task, while simultaneously moving based on the code input on its system. This will be a combination of concepts behind load lifting and balancing. For this research, the setup would be evaluated in a simulated environment as a controlled testing room with cameras placed within and will be controlled from a third party program. The model cameras placed within the simulated environment will be able to capture the different areas of the simulation run of the whole system. This would allow the researchers to oversee whether the team of multiple drones were able to fly through the trajectory and maintain the stability of the payload with respect to the movement of the drones which would fly at a height of 1m from the ground. To stabilize the platform, the researchers would first study the trajectory of the marker due to drone movement and program the algorithm to be able to fly through as a team. The platform to be used as the suspended payload and the cable to be attached to it, will be modeled in the software and will be adjusted in order for the simulation to work. The researchers were able to develop a system capable of maintaining the centroid of the payload as it is transported by the quadcopters along a set trajectory. The trajectories created are point to point, circle, and elevating point to point. Using the controller designed in Simulink, the system was able to carry out its task of maintaining the centroid by utilizing the odometry sensor of the marker. The adjustments done by the quadcopters were dependent on the position of the marker and how far it is from the middle of the payload.