Robust adaptive control for formation-based cooperative transportation of a payload by multi quadrotors

This paper discusses the development of position control for a rigid body payload carried by a team of quadrotors in the presence of external disturbance and uncertainty in model parameters. The formation of quadrotors is controlled and maintained during payload transportation for uniform load distribution and collision avoidance. In the controller structure, an adaptive sliding mode hierarchical control with the constant plus proportional rate reaching law is designed to compensate for the uncertainties that have unknown bounds. The finite-time stability of the closed-loop system is performed using Lyapunov stability analysis and the multiple time scale principle. Finally, the simulation results are shown to confirm the performance of the proposed controller in payload trajectory tracking without knowing its mass while the formation of the quadrotors is maintained. (c) 2022 European Control Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.