Dynamically feasible and safe shape transitions for teams of aerial robots

Abstract

We consider the problem of generating dynamically feasible and safe plans for teams of aerial robots (quadrotors) while holding a fixed relative formation as well as transitioning between a sequence of formations. We extend the existing assignment and planning approaches for quadrotor teams to find minimal-time trajectories to enable team transition between non-rest initial and ending states while ensuring dynamic feasibility with respect to predefined kinematic, dynamic, and collision constraints. This work also presents a method for safe splitting and merging of robot formations according to input specification. The proposed methodology is capable of generating dynamically feasible and safe plans for teams of quadrotors in real time. We validate the performance of the proposed approach through various trials and scenarios conducted in simulation.