Motion Planning and Control of a Morphing Quadrotor in Restricted Scenarios
Guiyang Cui, Ruihao Xia, Xin Jin, Yang Tang
Abstract
Morphing quadrotors with four integrated actuators can adapt to different restricted scenarios by changing their geometric structure. However, previous works mainly focus on the improvements in structures and controllers, and existing planning algorithms don't consider the morphological modifcations, which leads to safety and dynamic feasibility issues. In this paper, we propose a unifed planning and control framework for morphing quadrotors to deform autonomously and effciently. The framework consists of a milliseconds-level spatial-temporal trajectory optimizer that takes into account the morphological modifcations of quadrotors. The optimizer can generate fullbody safety trajectories including position and attitude. Additionally, it incorporates a nonlinear attitude controller that accounts for aerodynamic drag and dynamically adjusts dynamic parameters such as the inertia tensor and Center of Gravity. The controller can also online compute the thrust coeffcient during morphing. Benchmark experiments validate the robustness of the proposed controller and extensive simulations and real experiments demonstrate the framework's effectiveness.