Trajectory Planning and Control of a Quadrotor Choreography for Real-Time Artist-in-the-Loop Performances

This paper proposes a systematic methodology for the guidance, control, and navigation of a quadrotor to perform a choreographed dance in real-time as a function of, and interacting with, the music performed by an artist-in-the-loop. This methodology allows for a real-time interaction with improvized music by an artist based on the pitch of the acoustic signal being played without prior knowledge of the music. The four main components of a human choreography (namely, the notions of space, shape, time and structure) are analyzed and mathematically formulated for a robotic performance. A new approach for mapping music features to trajectory parameters is proposed, as well as the design of a trajectory shaping filter based on two coefficients that are set in real-time by an artist through a MIDI foot-pedal board. The proposed approach maps motion parameters and the music to trajectory motifs that are then switched in harmony with the chord structure. The overall system is validated in a hardware-in-the-loop simulation where the hardware will consist of the musical instrument and the foot pedals. In the simulation, the trajectory generator system is inverted to generate a sequence of music pitches from the actual trajectory of the quadrotor. The music generated by the quadrotor is then played back to the musician allowing for real-time interaction. The simulation results show that the proposed methodology yields an effective performance for a quadrotor choreography based on the real-time interaction with a musician. The proposed system was successfully used by an artist as can be seen in a video link to the work described in this paper and listed in the conclusions.