Formation Control and Path Tracking for a Group of Quadrotors to Carry Out a Suspended Load

In this research, the objective is using 4 quadrotors in a group to carry out a certain weighted load. The load is connected by cables to each quadrotor. The equations of motion of the quadrotors are considered completely and without simplification. Unlike other researches, to express the relationship between the load and the quadrotors, the ropes are considered as springs, so they are pulled out and retracted during the mission. Formation control design and path tracking by the group is done by using feedback linearization control. Control protocol design is presented in two structure, centralized, and decentralized. Unlike other papers, in decentralized structure, there is no information communication between the agents to reduce the communication costs. The mission of the group is defined as the quadrotors first pick off the load from the ground and, then, track the desired path to reach the target point. When the load reaches the target point, the quadrotors should put the load on the ground and, then, land themselves. Cutting the cable of one of the quadrotors is applied to the system as a fault and in addition to providing a method to detect its occurrence, the performance of the centralized controller is checked in this situation.