TransforMARS: Fault-Tolerant Self-Reconfiguration for Arbitrary-Shaped Modular Aerial Robot Systems
Rui Huang, Zhiyu Gao, Siyu Tang, jialin zhang, Lei He, Ziqian Zhang, Lin Zhao
AI summary
Problem
Existing modular aerial robot self-reconfiguration methods are limited to rectangular formations and single faults, lacking the ability to handle multiple failures in arbitrary shapes or plan collision-free reassembly paths.
Approach
The framework constructs flexible Virtual Minimum Controllable Subassemblies around faulty units, clears obstructing normal units via path clearance, and computes conflict-free assembly sequences to reach an optimal stable configuration.
Key results
- Handles multiple simultaneous unit and rotor faults in arbitrary configurations
- Maintains positive controllability margins throughout intermediate reconfiguration steps
- Reduces disassembly and assembly steps compared to prior single-fault methods
- Validated through high-fidelity simulation and real-world quadrotor experiments
Why it matters
Enables reliable deployment of modular aerial robots in complex search, rescue, and transport missions where hardware failures are likely.
Abstract
Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) consist of multiple drone modules that are physically bound together to form a single structure for flight. Exploiting structural redun- dancy, MARS can be reconfigured into different formations to mitigate unit or rotor failures and maintain stable flight. Prior work on MARS self-reconfiguration has solely focused on maximizing controllability margins to tolerate a single rotor or unit fault for rectangular-shaped MARS. We propose Transfor- MARS, a general fault-tolerant reconfiguration framework that transforms arbitrarily shaped MARS under multiple rotor and unit faults while ensuring continuous in-air stability. Specif- ically, we develop algorithms to first identify and construct minimum controllable assemblies containing faulty units. We then plan feasible disassembly-assembly sequences to transport MARS units or subassemblies to form target configuration. Our approach enables more flexible and practical feasible reconfiguration. We validate TransforMARS in challenging arbitrarily shaped MARS configurations, demonstrating sub- stantial improvements over prior works in both the capacity of handling diverse configurations and the number of faults tolerated. The videos and source code of this work are available at https://github.com/RuiHuangNUS/TransforMARS