Cooperative quadrocopter ball throwing and catching

This paper presents a method for enabling a fleet of circularly arranged quadrocopters to throw and catch balls with a net. Based on a first-principles model of the net forces, nominal inputs for all involved vehicles are derived for arbitrary target trajectories of the net. Two algorithms that generate open-loop trajectories for throwing and catching a ball are also introduced. A set of throws and catches is demonstrated in the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena testbed.

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