Attainable Force Approximation and Full-Pose Tracking Control of an Over-Actuated Thrust-Vectoring Modular Team UAV

Traditional vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft can not achieve optimal efficiency for various payload weights and has limited mobility due to its under-actuation. With the thrust-vectoring mechanism, the proposed modular team UAV is fully actuated at certain attitudes. However, the attainable force space (AFS) differs according to the team configuration, which makes the controller design difficult. We propose an approximation to the AFS and a full-pose tracking controller with an attitude planner and a force projection, which guarantees the control force is feasible. The proposed approach can be applied to UAVs having multiple thrust- vectoring effectors with homogeneous agents. The simulation and experiment demonstrate a tilting motion during hovering for a 4-agent team.