Robust control tuning by PSO of aerial robots hose transportation

Abstract

This work presents a method to build a robust controller for a hose transportation system performed by aerial robots. We provide the system dynamic model, equations and desired equilibrium criteria. Control is obtained through PID controllers tuned by particle swarm optimization (PSO). The control strategy is illustrated for three quadrotors carrying two sections of a hose, but the model can be easily expanded to a bigger number of quadrotors system, due to the approach modularity. Experiments demonstrate the PSO tuning method convergence, which is fast. More than one solution is possible, and control is very robust.