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Decentralized planning and control for UAV–UGV cooperative teams

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Abstract

In this paper we study a symbiotic aerial vehicle-ground vehicle robotic team where unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used for aerial manipulation tasks, while unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) aid and assist them. UGV can provide a UAV with a safe landing area and transport it across large distances, while UAV can provide an additional degree of freedom for the UGV, enabling it to negotiate obstacles. We propose an overall system control framework that includes high-accuracy motion planning for each individual robot and ad-hoc decentralized mission planning for complex missions. Experimental results obtained in a mockup arena for parcel transportation scenario show that the system is able to plan and execute missions in various environments and that the obtained plans result in lower energy consumption.

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Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the EU-FP7-ICT project European Robotics Challenges (EuRoC), Grant Agreement No. 608849.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory for Robotics and Intelligent Control Systems (LARICS), Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Unska 3, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Barbara Arbanas, Antun Ivanovic, Marko Car, Matko Orsag, Tamara Petrovic & Stjepan Bogdan

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  1. Barbara Arbanas
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  2. Antun Ivanovic
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  3. Marko Car
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  4. Matko Orsag
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  5. Tamara Petrovic
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  6. Stjepan Bogdan
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Correspondence to Barbara Arbanas.

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This is one of several papers published in Autonomous Robots comprising the “Special Issue on Distributed Robotics: From Fundamentals to Applications”.

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Arbanas, B., Ivanovic, A., Car, M. et al. Decentralized planning and control for UAV–UGV cooperative teams. Auton Robot 42, 1601–1618 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-018-9712-y

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