Aggressive Maneuvering of a Quadrotor with a Cable-Suspended Payload

This work examines the system of a quadrotor carrying a cable-suspended payload. As a motivating application, we demonstrate the “load-transport maneuver”, where the quadrotor picks up an object with a cable mechanism, transports it through an environment, and drops it into a target location, mimicking the process of Christmas tree harvesting by humanpiloted helicopters. We derive the coordinate-free dynamics for the system, which we model as a hybrid dynamical system, explore its differential flatness properties, and develop nonlinear controllers for its subsystems. We then present a trajectory generation technique that accounts for the switches of the hybrid system. Finally, we provide experimental validation on a quadrotor platform.

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