Null-Space Based Control Applied to a Formation of Aerial Manipulators in Congested Environment

Abstract

The present work shows a control strategy based on null-space for monitoring the trajectory of a training of aerial manipulators in congested environments. By means of the null-space control, several control objectives can be achieved, assigning a priority to each of the objectives. The strategy proposes the control of a homogeneous formation of three aerial manipulators for the tasks of trajectory tracking and the evasion of obstacles. The aerial manipulator is composed of a quadcopter and a robotic arm of three degrees of freedom. Obstacle avoidance uses the definition of a fictional potential field. The stability of the proposed controls is verified according to the Lyapunov criteria and the results obtained from simulation show the good performance of the proposed controller.