Sliding into Balance: Benefits of a Sliding Payload for Load Distribution and Disturbance Rejection in Dual-UAV Transportation
Sliding into Balance: Benefits of a Sliding Payload for Load Distribution and Disturbance Rejection in Dual-UAV Transportation
This paper analyzes cooperative transportation of a payload suspended from two drones where the payload slides along a single rope connecting both UAVs instead of being attached to two independent ropes. A planar nondimensional dynamical model with viscous friction is presented, and the sliding configuration is compared with a fixed payload under stationary drone conditions. Analytical results show that the sliding payload equalizes tension in both rope segments for any relative drone position, doubles the reachable region for the payload, and enlarges the set of admissible disturbances except in cases of low friction combined with large drone separation. Dynamic simulations under realistic gusty wind profiles further demonstrate that the average tension imbalance between drones is reduced compared to the fixed-payload solution.
The study presents a nondimensional dynamical model and simulation results for a dual-UAV system where a payload slides along a single rope, demonstrating analytically that this configuration equalizes tension between segments and expands the reachable region compared to fixed-payload setups.
Source: arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · Read original article ↗
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arXiv:2611.12754v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This paper analyzes the cooperative transportation of a payload suspended from two drones in which, instead of being attached to two independent ropes, the payload is allowed to slide along a single rope connecting both UAVs. First, a planar nondimensional dynamical model of the sliding motion with viscous friction is presented. Then, considering stationary drones, this
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configuration is compared with a fixed payload with the same total rope length, both at equilibrium and under disturbances. The analytical results show that the sliding payload equalizes the tension in both rope segments for any relative position of the drones, so that no rope loses tension at equilibrium; it doubles the region reachable by the payload and, except for low friction combined with a large drone separat
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ion, it enlarges the set of admissible disturbances. Finally, a dynamic simulation also shows that under realistic gusty wind profiles, the average tension imbalance between the drones is reduced with respect to the fixed-payload solution.
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Source：arXiv Robotics — research abstracts · arxiv.org