Control Framework for Slung Load Transportation with Two Aerial Vehicles

We model a point mass load tethered to two aerial vehicles, and propose a control strategy that guarantees that the load tracks a desired position trajectory. Our framework consists in designing an input and a state transformation which converts the quadrotors-load system into three decoupled subsystems: one concerning the position of the load, with dynamics similar to those of an under-actuated aerial vehicle; one concerning the angle between the cables, with double integrator dynamics; and another concerning the yaw motion of the plane formed by the cables, also with double integrator dynamics. Once the decoupling is done, controllers from the literature can be leveraged, which we take advantage of when controlling the subsystem with dynamics similar to those of an under-actuated aerial vehicle. Simulations are presented which validate the proposed algorithm.