Planning Parcel Relay Manoeuvres for Quadrotors

Abstract

In this paper, a strategy for planning aggressive collision-free parcel relay manoeuvres for quadrotors is proposed. The method relies on the generation of optimal polynomial trajectories with acceleration constraints in order to coordinate the attitude of the vehicles during the package exchange. The problem is formulated as a mixed-integer quadratic program where the integer constraints ensure collision avoidance. The manoeuvre is divided into three phases and the dynamical model of the robots is considered to ensure the vehicles keep a suitable relative orientation during the parcel transfer. Simulation results demonstrate the success of the presented strategy.