The Reconfigurable Aerial Robotic Chain: Modeling and Control

This paper overviews the system design, modeling and control of the Aerial Robotic Chain. This new design corresponds to a reconfigurable robotic system of systems consisting of multilinked micro aerial vehicles that presents the ability to cross narrow sections, morph its shape, ferry significant payloads, offer the potential of distributed sensing and processing, and enable system extendability. We present the system dynamics for any number of connected aerial vehicles, followed by the controller design involving a model predictive position control loop combined with multiple parallel angular controllers on SO(3). Evaluation studies both in simulation and through experiments based on our ARC-Alpha prototype are depicted and involve coordinated maneuvering and shape configuration to cross narrow windows.