Autonomous recovery of a fixed‐wing UAV using a net suspended by two multirotor UAVs. Issue 5 (29th December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Klausen, Kristian; Fossen, Thor I.; Johansen, Tor Arne
• Is Part Of: Journal of field robotics. Volume 35:Issue 5(2018)
• Page Start: 717
• Page End: 731
• Publication Date: 2017-12-29
• Subjects: aerial robotics -- control -- cooperative robots; Robots, Industrial -- Periodicals; Automatic control -- Periodicals; 629.892
• DOI: 10.1002/rob.21772
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1556-4959

Abstract

Abstract: This article presents a novel recovery method for fixed‐wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aimed at enabling operations from marine vessels. Instead of using the conventional method of using a fixed net on the ship deck, we propose to suspend a net under two cooperative multirotor UAVs. While keeping their relative formation, the multirotor UAVs are able to intercept the incoming fixed‐wing UAV along a virtual runway over the sea and transport it back to the ship. In addition to discussing the concept and design a control system, this paper also presents experimental validation of the proposed concept for a small‐scale UAV platform.