Optimal Design of Integrated Aerial Platforms With Passive Joints

Abstract

The Integrated Aerial Platform (IAP) uses multiple quadrotor sub-vehicles, acting as independent thrust generators, connected to a central platform via passive joints. This setup allows the sub-vehicles to collectively apply forces and torques to the central platform, achieving full six-degree-of-freedom (6-DoF) motion through coordinated thrust and posture adjustments. The IAP's modular design offers significant advantages in terms of mechanical simplicity, reconfigurability for diverse scenarios, and enhanced mission adaptability. This letter presents a comprehensive framework for IAP modeling and optimal design. We introduce a “design matrix” that encapsulates key architectural parameters, including the number of sub-vehicles, their spatial configuration, and the types of passive joints used. To improve control performance and ensure balanced wrench generation capabilities, we propose an optimized design strategy that minimizes the condition number of this design matrix. Two distinct IAP configurations were optimally designed based on two typical application scenarios. The efficacy of the proposed optimization methodology was subsequently validated through comparative analysis against unoptimized platforms. Moreover, the full actuation capability of the IAP was empirically confirmed via extensive simulations and real-world flight experiments, which also demonstrated its operational performance through direct wrench control experiment.