Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

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Aerospace Science and Technology

www.elsevier.com/locate/aescte

Energy-based nonlinear adaptive control for collaborative

transportation systems ✩
Yi Chai, Xiao Liang ∗ , Zhichao Yang, Jianda Han ∗∗
Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information System, College of Artificial Intelligence, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robotics, Nankai University, Tianjin
300350, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As an ideal method for heavy or large payload delivery, collaborative aerial transportation with multiple
Received 6 October 2021 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) increases the load capacity. However, during the transportation process,
Received in revised form 7 December 2021 collaborative transportation systems are always subject to environmental disturbances and system
Accepted 21 March 2022
uncertainties, which poses a great challenge to safe and efficient payload transportation. Existing works
Available online 2 April 2022
Communicated by Bing Wang
without payload angle information in control inputs cannot exhibit satisfactory antiswing performance. To
handle the aforementioned issues, this paper proposes a novel control strategy for rapid UAV positioning
Keywords: and payload swing elimination. Specifically, the dynamic model of the collaborative transportation system
Collaborative aerial transportation is described based on a redundant dynamic expression. Then, an artificially constructed UAV-payload
Antiswing control unified signal is introduced to enhance the state coupling between the UAV positions and payload swing
Lyapunov method angles. Based on the newly defined signal, the energy storage function is constructed and the adaptive
control law is derived. Additionally, the detailed Lyapunov analysis is provided to prove the system
stability and convergence. It is worth noting that the difficulty of the stability analysis is greatly reduced
with the help of the established redundant dynamic description. To validate the performance of the
proposed control strategy, experimental studies have been carried out in different scenarios. Hardware
experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively suppress load swing while ensuring
rapid UAV positioning, even with external disturbances.
© 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction approach is to utilize a gripper/manipulator to deliver the payload

The last few years have seen sweeping popularity of adopt-
ing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in military and civilian ap-
plications, such as persistent surveillance, disaster response and
relief, as well as express delivery and hazardous material trans-
portation. With the broadening of applications, many studies have
been conducted to increase flight performance and robustness to
uncertain or unknown flight conditions [1–8]. As an important ap-
plication, aerial transportation has the advantages of time-saving
and collision-free from the terrain threat. Previous researches on
aerial transportation can be categorized into two areas. The first
✩
This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of
China under Grant 91848203, and Grant 61903200, in part by Natural Science Foun-
dation of Tianjin under Grant 19JCQNJC03500, in part by the China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation under Grant 2020M670632, and in part by the Young Elite Sci-
entists Sponsorship Program by Tianjin under Grant TJSQNTJ-2020-21.
* Co-first author.
** Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: chaiyi@mail.nankai.edu.cn (Y. Chai), liangx@nankai.edu.cn
(X. Liang), yangzc@mail.nankai.edu.cn (Z. Yang), hanjianda@nankai.edu.cn (J. Han).
[9–11]. The second is achieved by suspending the cargo beneath
the UAV with a cable, which reduces mechanical complexity and
energy consumption compared with the former one [12–14].
Endowed with the above advantages, several studies have been
carried out on the cable-suspended payload transportation to
achieve safe and efficient transportation [15–17]. By regarding a
quadrotor with a suspended load as a hybrid system, a trajectory
planning algorithm was proposed [18]. But the exact orders for
hybrid subsystem transitions were assumed to be known as a pri-
ori. To avoid this assumption, the hybrid modes were represented
by complementarity constraints and obtained by solving an opti-
mization problem [19]. Based on an uncertainty and disturbance
estimator, a path following controller was designed to reject un-
known wind disturbances [20].
The aerial transportation task using multiple UAVs has received
considerable attention due to the increased load capacity. However,
the increased UAV numbers directly make the load transportation
problem more complicated. A generic solution is to regard the
transported payload as a point-mass one, which in turn simpli-
fies the control design and implementation process. For example, a
fixed-time extended state observer (ESO) based feedback controller

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2022.107510
1270-9638/© 2022 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al.
was designed, where only the rotorcraft position was needed, and
the system stability was confirmed by rigorous proofs [21]. In [22],
a distributed controller was proposed for each UAV to guarantee a
fixed formation during the cooperative payload transportation. The
trajectory planning and tracking problems for a multi-body slung-
load system were solved in [23]. The UAVs reference trajectories
were calculated from the load trajectory and tracked by the decen-
tralized robust model predictive control (MPC) method. In addition,
a cooperative control law was presented in [24] for a group of
UAVs transporting an unknown mass payload under stochastic en-
vironmental disturbances.
Compared with the point-mass load transportation, the rigid
body load transportation poses more challenges in system model-
ing and control. To tackle these challenges, many researchers have
studied in this field and developed various methods. A geomet-
ric controller was proposed in [25] to guarantee that the payload
could asymptotically follow a desired trajectory under uncertain-
ties. The unknown mass, center of mass and moments of inertia
of a slung load were estimated based on the Kalman filter theory
[26]. With the estimation results incorporated into the feedback
loop, the rotorcraft position tracking performance was significantly
improved. In [27], the quadrotor state estimation and system con-
trol were achieved by utilizing the camera and the inertial mea-
surement units (IMU) sensors. During the transportation task ex-
ecution, there was no communication between two quadrotors.
Equipped with monocular vision and inertial sensing devices, the
cooperative transportation task for suspended rigid body payloads
could be deployed in GPS-denied environments [28]. Based on a
leader-follower framework, a control strategy with input shapers
was designed to realize cooperative transportation of a slender
load using two quadrotors [29]. Through a similar framework, a
switching controller was developed in [30] for cooperative trans-
portation without inter-agent communication. In addition, a com-
municationless leader-follower admittance controller was proved
to guarantee asymptotic stabilization of any given load attitude for
the cooperative transportation task using two UAVs if the internal
force between two UAVs was nonzero [31]. Though the mentioned
works have been successfully implemented for stable control of
cooperative transportation, there exist few works proposed for the
case when one or more suspension component (cable or quadro-
tor) failures. To this end, a fault-tolerant control method was de-
signed in [32] for cooperative aerial transportation subject to pa-
rameter uncertainties and suspension failures.
Most of the cooperative payload transportation experiments
were carried out based on the indoor motion capture system
[29,33,34,36,37]. For practical purposes, the works in [21,24,26] ex-
tended the cooperative payload transportation tasks to the outdoor
case. Instead of using an external sensing system like GPS or mo-
tion capture system, the authors in [27,28] presented a more au-
tonomous cooperative transportation way only based on onboard
sensors.
For simplicity, existing methods usually assume that the ca-
ble links are massless. To relax this assumption, researchers have
investigated new approaches that considered the rope links as
springs or flexible links [35,36,38].
Generally, the payload swing angle increases as the UAV speeds
up. For a single quadrotor transportation system, aiming at achiev-
ing rapid UAV positioning and payload swing suppression, several
works have been developed. An online trajectory planning algo-
rithm was proposed without iterative optimizations [39]. More
specifically, the trajectory planning method was divided into a tar-
get positioning part and an antiswing one. Based on the Robust In-
tegral of Sign of the Error (RISE), a novel nonlinear control method
was developed [40]. The system asymptotic stability was proved
theoretically with Lyapunov techniques. Although many successful
solutions have been proposed for the payload antiswing problem
2
Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510
Fig. 1. Tethered transportation of a bar load by two UAVs.
of the aerial payload transportation using a single aircraft, few
studies focused on the cooperative payload transportation while
suppressing the payload swing. Therefore, the motivation of this
paper is to deal with the antiswing control issue of the coopera-
tive payload transportation. The stronger nonlinearity and coupling
properties pose a great challenge for the payload swing suppres-
sion problem of the cooperative system. In this paper, the payload
swing angle is first incorporated into an artificially constructed
UAV-payload unified signal. Then, the newly defined signal is reg-
ulated to improve the payload swing attenuation performance and
UAV positioning. The main contributions of this paper are as fol-
lows:
1) A redundant description for the collaborative transportation
system is derived and presented, which simplifies the stabil-
ity analysis.
2) Unlike the existing works with only UAV position signal in
control input, an antiswing control method is proposed for
the cooperative payload transportation based on an artificially
constructed UAV-payload unified signal to improve the tran-
sient performance. In addition, rigorous stability analysis is
given by utilizing Lyapunov techniques.
3) Experimental results are conducted to verify the efficacy and
robustness of the proposed method.
This paper is organized as follows: problem formulation is pro-
vided in Section 2. In Section 3, a novel energy storage function is
constructed by introducing the artificially constructed UAV-payload
unified signal. Subsequently, the controller form is presented fol-
lowed by theoretical proofs in Section 4. Moreover, experimental
results are given to validate the rapid UAV positioning and pay-
load swing suppression performance of the proposed method in
Section 5. Section 6 summarizes the entire paper.
2. Problem formulation
Fig. 1 illustrates the schematic of a bar load tethered to two
UAVs. O - X Y Z denotes a right hand inertial frame, m1 and m2 rep-
resent the mass of two UAVs, m3 denotes the mass of the payload,
l1 and l2 are the cable lengths, l3 depicts the half thickness of the
bar load, ξ 1 = [ y 1 , z1 ] and ξ 2 = [ y 2 , z2 ] are two UAVs’ positions,
ξ p = [ y p , z p ] is the position of the payload, θ = [θ1 , θ2 , θ3 ] ,
where θ1 and θ2 denote the angles between the cables and the
positive z axis, and θ3 is deflection angle of the bar load. For
brevity, the following notations are defined as
Ci = cos(θi ), Ci ± j = cos(θi ± θ j ),
Si = sin(θi ), Si ± j = sin(θi ± θ j ), i , j = 1, 2, 3.
Without loss of generality, the following assumptions are made
before the development of the model.
Assumption 1. The suspension ropes are massless and kept taut all
the time.
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

1 
Assumption 2. Each suspension rope is suspended at the center of m2 z̈2 + m3 z̈1 + z̈2 + l1 S1 θ̈1 + l2 S2 θ̈2 + 2l3 S3 θ̈3
mass of the corresponding UAV. 4

+l1 C1 θ̇12 + l2 C2 θ̇22 + 2l3 C3 θ̇32 = u 4 + f rz2 , (10)
The relation between ξ p and ξ i can be provided as:
1 
m3l1 C1 ÿ 1 + S1 z̈1 + C1 ÿ 2 + S1 z̈2 + l1 θ̈1 − l2 C1+2 θ̈2
1 4
yp = ( y 1 + y 2 + l 1 S1 − l 2 S2 ) + l 3 S3 ,  1
2 +2l3 C1−3 θ̈3 + l2 S1+2 θ̇22 + 2l3 S1−3 θ̇32 + m3 gl1 S1 = f r θ1 , (11)
1 2
zp = ( z 1 + z 2 − l 1 C1 − l 2 C2 ) − l 3 C3 . (1) 1 
2 m3l2 −C2 ÿ 1 + S2 z̈1 − C2 ÿ 2 + S2 z̈2 − l1 C1+2 θ̈1 + l2 θ̈2
4
The velocity of the payload ξ̇ p can be computed:  1
−2l3 C2+3 θ̈3 + l1 S1+2 θ̇12 + 2l3 S2+3 θ̇32 + m3 gl2 S2 = f r θ2 , (12)
1 2
ẏ p = ( ẏ 1 + ẏ 2 + l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 ) + l3 C3 θ̇3 , 1 
2 m3l3 C3 ÿ 1 + S3 z̈1 + C3 ÿ 2 + S3 z̈2 + l1 C1−3 θ̈1 − l2 C2+3 θ̈2
2
1 
ż p = (ż1 + ż2 + l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 ) + l3 S3 θ̇3 . (2)
2 +2l3 θ̈3 − l1 S1−3 θ̇12 + l2 S2+3 θ̇22 + m3 gl3 S3 = f r θ3 , (13)
To achieve the construction of the dynamic model, we first define where f r y 1 , f rz1 , f r y 2 , f rz2 ∈ R and f r θ1 , f r θ2 , f r θ3 ∈ R denote the
generalized states of the UAVs-bar transportation system as q = aerodynamic resistance forces derived from the rotorcraft’s trans-
[ y 1 , z1 , y 2 , z2 , θ1 , θ2 , θ3 ] . Based on the Euler-Lagrange method lation and payload swing, respectively. The detailed forms of these
[41], the dynamic model of the system can be derived: resistance forces can be calculated as

L = T − U, (3) f r y 1 = −d y 1 ẏ 1 , f rz1 = −d z1 ż1 , f r y 2 = −d y 2 ẏ 2 , f rz2 = −d z2 ż2 ,

d ∂L ∂L f r θ1 = −dθ1 θ̇1 , f r θ2 = −dθ2 θ̇2 , f r θ3 = −dθ3 θ̇3 , (14)
− =Q, (4)
dt ∂ q̇ ∂q
where d y 1 , d z1 , d y 2 , d z2 ∈ R+ and dθ1 , dθ2 , dθ3 ∈ R+ stand for the
where L denotes the Lagrangian, T and U are the kinematic and corresponding damping coefficients.
potential energy, respectively, Q represents the generalized force. By rearranging (7)-(13), the dynamic model of the UAVs-bar
It should be noted that the constrained translations of two UAVs transportation system can be described as:
and payload are considered in the kinematic energy in this paper.
The detailed forms of T and U are given: M (q)q̈ + C (q, q̇) + G (q) = U + F r , (15)
7×7
where M (q) ∈ R represents the inertia matrix, C (q, q̇) ∈ R7×7
1
2
1  
T= m3 ξ̇ p ξ̇ p + mi ξ̇ i ξ̇ i , (5) denotes the centripetal-Coriolis matrix; the gravity vector G (q) ∈
2 2 R7 , the control input vector U ∈ R7 and the aerodynamic resis-
i =1
tance force vector F r ∈ R7 are described as follows:

2
U = m3 gz p + mi gzi . (6) 1 1
G = [0, 0, 0, 0, m3 gl1 S1 , m3 gl2 S2 , m3 gl3 S3 ] ,
i =1 2 2
Define u 1 , u 2 , u 3 , and u 4 as the component forces exerted on the U = [u 1 , u 2 , u 3 , u 4 , 0, 0, 0] ,
y and z axes, whose detailed expressions are given as
F r = [ f r y 1 , f rz1 , f r y 2 , f rz2 , f r θ1 , f r θ2 , f r θ3 ] . (16)
 
1
u 1 = f 1 sin φ1 , u 2 = f 1 cos φ1 − m1 + m3 g, Assumption 3. For practical purposes, the constraints of θ1 , θ2 , and
2
  θ3 should satisfy
1
u 3 = f 2 sin φ2 , u 4 = f 2 cos φ2 − m2 + m3 g,
2 −π /2 < θ1 (t ), θ2 (t ), θ3 (t ) < π /2.
where f 1 and f 2 are UAVs’ thrusts, φ1 and φ2 are attitude angles
of two UAVs, g is the gravity coefficient. Our control objective is to position the two UAVs to the desired
Utilizing (1)-(6) and doing some calculations, the following locations, denoted by ξ 1d = [ y 1d , z1d ] and ξ 2d = [ y 2d , z2d ] , and
equations can be obtained as eliminate the swing angles, i.e.,

1  lim ξ 1 (t ) = ξ 1d , lim ξ 2 (t ) = ξ 2d ,
m1 ÿ 1 + m3 ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 + l1 C1 θ̈1 − l2 C2 θ̈2 + 2l3 C3 θ̈3 t →∞ t →∞
4
 lim θ1 (t ) = 0, lim θ2 (t ) = 0, lim θ3 (t ) = 0, (17)
t →∞ t →∞ t →∞
−l1 S1 θ̇12 + l2 S2 θ̇22 − 2l3 S3 θ̇32 = u 1 + f r y 1 , (7)
where the desired positions are chosen as
1 
m1 z̈1 + m3 z̈1 + z̈2 + l1 S1 θ̈1 + l2 S2 θ̈2 + 2l3 S3 θ̈3
4 y 2d − y 1d = l0 , z1d − l1 = z2d − l2 ,

+l1 C1 θ̇12 + l2 C2 θ̇22 + 2l3 C3 θ̇32 = u 2 + f rz1 , (8) wherein l0 is the length of the bar load.

1  Remark 1. For efficient modeling and control, the dynamic model

m2 ÿ 2 + m3 ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 + l1 C1 θ̈1 − l2 C2 θ̈2 + 2l3 C3 θ̈3
4 of the UAVs-bar transportation system is built in 2-D space in

this paper. In this case, each quadrotor has three degrees of free-
−l1 S1 θ̇12 + l2 S2 θ̇22 − 2l3 S3 θ̇32 = u 3 + f r y 2 , (9)
doms (DOFs), including two translational DOFs and one rotational

3
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

DOF. And the payload motion contains one DOF. When considering where Ė u is defined to ensure that Ė k can be integrated w.r.t. time,
the system model in 3-D space, every quadrotor possesses three and its detailed form is given as
translational DOFs and three rotational DOFs. Besides, the payload
4 1 1
motion presents three DOFs. In terms of feasibility, the 2-D space Ė u = −λ( + + )(θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 ). (23)
model can be utilized to solve many problems, such as the point- m3 m1 m2
to-point transportation task can be completed within the y − z Together with (18), (20), and (22), E k (t ) can be written as
plane by displacement control in x-axis. We are currently working
on these challenges to provide a complete model and the corre- Ek = E + Ed,
sponding control design in 3-D space. Generally, the five states
including the position of the payload and three swing angles can where E d satisfies
be selected as the generalized states while developing the model
of the UAVs-bar transportation system. In this paper, seven states Ė d = η̇ (ut + F r ξ ) + Ė u . (24)
are chosen to generate a redundant dynamic expression, which fa- By substituting (7)–(13), one has
cilitates the subsequent stability proof.
Ė d = Ė dy 1 + Ė dz1 + Ė dy 2 + Ė dz2 + Ė u , (25)
Remark 2. In this paper, only the resistance forces caused by the
motion of the UAV and payload swing are considered. The parame- where the detailed forms of Ė dy 1 , Ė dz1 , Ė dy 2 , and Ė dz2 can be ex-
ter uncertainties including the mass of the payload and rope length pressed as:
are not investigated. In the future work, such parameter uncertain- 
1 
ties will be explored by utilizing some adaptive neural network or Ė dy 1 = η̇1 · m1 ÿ 1 + m3 ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 + l1 C1 θ̈1 − l2 C2 θ̈2
fuzzy control methods. 4

+2l3 C3 θ̈3 − l1 S1 θ̇12 + l2 S2 θ̇22 − 2l3 S3 θ̇32 , (26)
3. Energy storage function construction 
1 
Ė dz1 = η̇2 · m1 z̈1 + m3 z̈1 + z̈2 + l1 S1 θ̈1 + l2 S2 θ̈2
In this section, a novel energy storage function is designed by 4
introducing an artificially constructed UAV-payload unified signal

and analyzing the system passivity characteristics.
+2l3 S3 θ̈3 + l1 C1 θ̇12 + l2 C2 θ̇22 + 2l3 C3 θ̇32 , (27)

The total energy of the outer loop subsystem contains kinetic 1 
energy and potential terms, which can be expressed as Ė dy 2 = η̇3 · m2 ÿ 2 + m3 ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 + l1 C1 θ̈1 − l2 C2 θ̈2
4

1 1 1 +2l3 C3 θ̈3 − l1 S1 θ̇12 + l2 S2 θ̇22 − 2l3 S3 θ̇32 ,
E = q̇ M q̇ + m3 gl1 (1 − C1 ) + m3 gl2 (1 − C2 ) (28)
2 2 2 
1 
+ m3 gl3 (1 − C3 ). (18) Ė dz2 = η̇4 · m2 z̈2 + m3 z̈1 + z̈2 + l1 S1 θ̈1 + l2 S2 θ̈2
4
Due to the positive-definite property of M, one can conclude that 
E is locally positive definite. Taking its time derivative yields +2l3 S3 θ̈3 + l1 C1 θ̇12 + l2 C2 θ̇22 + 2l3 C3 θ̇32 , (29)

1 1 1 1 where η̇i can be calculated as

Ė = q̈ M q̇ + q̇ Ṁ q̇ + q̇ M q̈ + m3 gl1 S1 θ̇1
2 2 2 2 ∂ ηi ∂ ηi ∂ ηi
1 η̇i = θ̇1 + θ̇2 + θ̇3 i = 1, 2, 3, 4. (30)
+ m3 gl2 S2 θ̇2 + m3 gl3 S3 θ̇3 . (19) ∂θ1 ∂θ2 ∂θ3
2
To obtain E d (t ), the form of Ė d can be firstly explored. It is not
Substituting (7)-(13) into (19), the following equation can be
difficult to find that
obtained
1 d  
2
  l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3
Ė = q̇ (U + F r ) = ξ̇ (ut + F r ξ ) + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 , 2 dt
 
(20) = l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 l1 C1 θ̈1 − l2 C2 θ̈2 + 2l3 C3 θ̈3

where ξ = [ξ    
1 , ξ 2 ] , F r ξ = [ f r y 1 , f rz1 , f r y 2 , f rz2 ] , u t = [u 1 , u 2 , −l1 S1 θ̇12 + l2 S2 θ̇22 − 2l3 S3 θ̇32 , (31)

u 3 , u 4 ] . From the structure of (20), one can see that the system,
1 d  
with ut as the input and ξ̇ as the output, is passive and dissipa- 2
l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3
tive. Nevertheless, the swing motion terms, which are instrumental 2 dt
 
for rapid swing elimination, are not reflected by Ė . To this end, the = l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 l1 S1 θ̈1 + l2 S2 θ̈2 + 2l3 S3 θ̈3
state coupling for the energy is introduced to improve transient 
performance. Therefore, based on the UAV position and swing an-
+l1 C1 θ̇12 + l2 C2 θ̇22 + 2l3 C3 θ̇32 . (32)
gle information, the following UAV-payload unified signal ξ p can
Next, one can set the following conditions for η:
be constructed as
λ 
ξ p = ξ + η(θ ), (21)
η̇1 = l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 , (33)
m1
λ 
where η = [η1 , η2 , η3 , η4 ] ∈ R4 denotes a pending term. Further, η̇2 = l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 , (34)
we can shape an energy function E k (t ), whose time derivative is m1
given by λ 
η̇3 = l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 , (35)
m2
Ė k (t ) =(ξ̇ + η̇) (ut + F r ξ ) + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 + Ė u , λ 
(22) η̇4 = l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 , (36)
m2

4
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

where λ ∈ R is a constant parameter, such that (26) can be rear- t  

m3 m3
ranged as: Ė u + λ 1 + +
4m1 4m2
λ  1  0
Ė dy 1 = l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 m1 ÿ 1 + m3 ( ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 )

m1 4 × ( ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 ) l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3
 
λm3 d  2 + (z̈1 + z̈2 ) l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 dτ
+ l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 . (37)  
8m1 dt m3 m3
=λ 1 + +
4m1 4m2
Remark 3. It can be observed that (33) and (35) have the simi- 
lar forms. The same goes for (34) and (36). The forms of (33)-(36) × 2gl1 (C1 − 1) + 2gl2 (C2 − 1) + 4gl3 (C3 − 1)
are derived based on (26)-(32), which decouple the control inputs
from the system states and facilitate the subsequent controller de- 1 2
sign. − l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3
2
1 2
In a similar manner, one can derive − l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 . (43)
2

λ  1 Collecting up (41)–(43), the expression for E d (t ) is obtained as
Ė dz1 = l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 m1 z̈1 + m3 (z̈1 + z̈2 )
m1 4
 1  2
λm3 d  2 Ed = − λ l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3
+ l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 , (38) 2

8m1 dt  2
λ  1  + l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3
Ė dy 2 = l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 m2 ÿ 2 + m3 ( ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 ) m3 m3
m2 4 − 2λ(1 + + )
λm3 d   4m1 4m2
2
+ l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 , (39)
× [gl1 (1 − C1 ) + gl2 (1 − C2 ) + 2gl3 (1 − C3 )] . (44)
8m2 dt

λ  1 To make E d positive, λ < 0 should be guaranteed. For ease of ex-
Ė dz2 = l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 m2 z̈2 + m3 (z̈1 + z̈2 )
m2 4 pression, the following control gain is utilized:
λm3 d  
2
+ l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 . (40) kλ = −λ > 0. (45)
8m2 dt
Consequently, the storage function after shaping is obtained from
On the basis of (37)–(40), Ė d can be rewritten as follows:
(18) and (44) as follows:
Ė d = Ė dy 1 + Ė dz1 + Ė dy 2 + Ė dz2 + Ė u 1 1 
E k = q̇ M q̇ + kλ l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3
2
  
λ m3 m3 d  2 2 2
= · + l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3   1
8 m1 m2 dt 2
+ l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ3 + m3 gl1 (1 − C1 )
d   2
2
+ l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 1 m3
dt + m3 gl2 (1 − C2 ) + m3 gl3 (1 − C3 ) + 2kλ (1 +
  2 4m1
m3 m3 m3
+λ 1+ + + ) [gl1 (1 − C1 ) + gl2 (1 − C2 ) + 2gl3 (1 − C3 )] . (46)
4m1 4m2 4m2

× ( ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 ) l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 According to the form of (46), one can find that E k is locally posi-
 tive definite.
+ (z̈1 + z̈2 ) l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3
  Based on (33)–(36), the detailed form of η = [η1 , η2 , η3 , η4 ]
4 1 1 
−λ + + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 . (41) can be determined as
m3 m1 m2
−kλ
By utilizing (11)–(13), the following results can be obtained
η1 = (l1 S1 − l2 S2 + 2l3 S3 ) ,
m1
 −kλ
( ÿ 1 + ÿ 2 ) l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 η2 = [l1 (1 − C1 ) + l2 (1 − C2 ) + 2l3 (1 − C3 )] ,
 m1
+ (z̈1 + z̈2 ) l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 −kλ
η3 = (l1 S1 − l2 S2 + 2l3 S3 ) ,
4θ̇1 f r θ1 4θ̇2 f r θ2 4θ̇3 f r θ3 m2
= + + − 2gl1 S1 θ̇1 − l21 θ̇1 θ̈1
m3 m3 m3 −kλ
η4 = [l1 (1 − C1 ) + l2 (1 − C2 ) + 2l3 (1 − C3 )] . (47)
+ l1l2 C1+2 θ̇1 θ̈2 − 2l1l3 C1−3 θ̇1 θ̈3 − l1l2 S1+2 θ̇1 θ̇22 m2
With (21) and (47), the artificially constructed UAV-payload unified
− 2l1l3 S1−3 θ̇1 θ̇32 − l22 θ̇2 θ̈2 − 2gl2 S2 θ̇2 + l1l2 C1+2 θ̈1 θ̇2
position error  (t ) ∈ R4 can be defined as
+ 2l2l3 C2+3 θ̇2 θ̈3 − l1l2 S1+2 θ̈12 θ̇2 − 2l2l3 S2+3 θ̇2 θ̇32 − 4gl3 S3 θ̇3
 = ξ p − ξ d = eξ + η, (48)
− 4l23 θ̇3 θ̈3 − 2l1l3 C1−3 θ̈1 θ̇3 + 2l2l3 C2+3 θ̈2 θ̇3
+ 2l1l3 S1−3 θ̇12 θ̇3 − 2l2l3 S2+3 θ̇22 θ̇3 . (42) where ξ d = [ξ    
1d , ξ 2d ] , e ξ = ξ − ξ d = [e y1 , e z1 , e y2 , e z2 ] .
From (48), one can conclude that, by rendering  → 04×1 with
By utilizing (42), the 2nd and 3rd terms in (41) can be integrated the controller to be developed subsequently, the control objective
with respect to time to yield of (17) can be achieved.

5
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Remark 4. The energy function includes the system kinetic and 4.2. Theoretical proofs
potential energy. A natural approach of obtaining the Lyapunov
function candidate is to investigate the energy function. More im- Theorem 1. The controller given by (55) ensures that the system state
portantly, to enhance the antiswing performance, we add swing converges to the equilibrium point, i.e.,
angle-related terms to the energy function. As can be seen from
  
the following parts of this paper, the design method facilitates the lim [ξ  
1 (t ), ξ 2 (t ), θ (t ), ξ̇ 1 (t ), ξ̇ 2 (t ), θ̇ (t )]
controller design. t →∞

= [ξ   
1d , ξ 2d , 03×1 , 02×1 , 02×1 , 03×1 ] . (56)
4. Controller development and stability analysis
Proof. Choose V (t ) = E (t ) as the Lyapunov function candidate,
In this section, the controller will be developed together with whose time derivative can be acquired by substituting (55) into
complete theoretical proofs. (53) as

4.1. Controller development V̇ = −˙  K d ˙ + Ė u + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 . (57)

Together with (54) and (57), the following result can be de-
Injecting error-related terms into E k (t ) yields duced:
1  1
E = Ek +  K p  + ω̃ −1
ω̃ξ , (49) V̇ ≤ 0. (58)
2 2 ξ ξ
Since V ∈ L∞ , one can further obtain that
where K p = diag([k py1 , k pz1 , k py2 , k pz2 ]) and ξ = diag([ y1 , z1 ,
y2 , z2 ]) are diagonal positive-definite matrices, ω̃ ξ is an estima-  , ˙ , ξ , ξ̇ , e ξ , ėξ , θ , θ̇ ∈ L∞ (59)
tion error vector defined by
Subsequently, the proof of Theorem 1 is completed by utiliz-
ω̃ξ = ωξ − ω̂ξ , (50) ing LaSalle’s invariance theorem. To this end, one first defines the
wherein ωξ = [d y1 , d z1 , d y2 , d z2 ] , ω̂ξ is an online estimate for ωξ , following set as
which is generated in the following manner:  
=  , ˙ , θ1 , θ2 , θ3 , θ̇1 , θ̇2 , θ̇3 | V̇ (t ) = 0 . (60)
ω̂˙ ξ = − ξ ξ ˙ , (51) Let be the largest invariant set in . Then, from (57) one can
get
where ξ = diag([ ẏ 1 , ż1 , ẏ 2 , ż2 ]).
According to (46) and (49), one can conclude that E is a non- θ̇1 = 0, θ̇2 = 0, θ̇3 = 0 ⇒ θ̈1 = 0, θ̈2 = 0, θ̈3 = 0,
negative function. The time derivative of E can be calculated as
˙ = ėξ + η̇ = 04×1 ⇒  = e ξ + η = c , ¨ = ëξ + η̈ = ξ̈ p = 04×1 ,
˙
E˙ = Ė k + ˙  K p  + ω̃ −1 (61)
ξ ξ ω̃ξ . (52)
where c = [c y1 , c z1 , c y2 , c z2 ] ∈ R4 is an undetermined
By substituting (22), (24), (50), and (51), Ė can be rewritten as
constant vector.

E˙ =˙  ut + F r ξ + K p  + ξ (ωξ − ω̂ξ ) + Ė u + θ̇1 f r θ1 Then, the following formula can be obtained from (47)–(48) and
(61):
+ θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3
 kλ
=˙  ut + K p  − ξ ω̂ξ + Ė u + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 . ẏ 1 − (l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 ) = 0, (62)
m1
(53) kλ
ż1 − (l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 ) = 0, (63)
Based on (16) and (23), one has m1
kλ
Ė u + θ̇1 f r θ1 + θ̇2 f r θ2 + θ̇3 f r θ3 ẏ 2 − (l1 C1 θ̇1 − l2 C2 θ̇2 + 2l3 C3 θ̇3 ) = 0, (64)
m2

4 1 1 kλ
= −1 − kλ ( + + ) (dθ1 θ̇12 + dθ2 θ̇22 + dθ3 θ̇32 ) ≤ 0. ż2 − (l1 S1 θ̇1 + l2 S2 θ̇2 + 2l3 S3 θ̇3 ) = 0. (65)
m3 m1 m2 m2
(54) Gathering the facts in (61) and (62)–(65), one can conclude that
Noting the form of (53), in order to keep Ė nonpositive, the con-
ξ̇ = 04×1 ⇒ ξ̈ = 04×1 . (66)
trol law u f can be designed as follows:
By substituting (55), (61), and (66) into (7)–(10), the following
u f = − K p  − K d ˙ + ξ ω̂ξ , (55) results can be obtained

where K d = diag([kdy1 , kdz1 , kdy2 , kdz2 ]) ∈ R4×4 is a diagonal pos-  = eξ + η = c = 04×1 . (67)
itive-definite matrix,  is defined in (48). With all system states
Subsequently, inserting (61) and (66) into (11)–(13) yields
available, then the controller in (55) can regulate the system.
S1 = 0, S2 = 0, S3 = 0 ⇒ θ1 = θ2 = θ3 = 0. (68)
Remark 5. The coefficient kλ is defined to regulate the payload an-
gle information in the artificially constructed UAV-payload unified By combining (67) with (68), we get
signal. When kλ is set to zero, the newly defined signal ξ p is equiv-
θ1 = θ2 = θ3 = 0 ⇒ η = 04×1 ⇒ e ξ = 04×1 . (69)
alent to the position signal ξ . In this case, the proposed method
can be considered as a traditional PD method. Hence, the proof of Theorem 1 is completed.

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Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Remark 6. Under ideal conditions, the proposed method with a

PD-like form can reach the desired value accurately enough. In the
actual experiments, the integral terms can be considered to elimi-
nate the steady-state error.

Remark 7. The complexity of the proposed method is O (n), where

n denotes the dimension of the variable  . That is to say, the time
complexity of the proposed control algorithm is only linearly re-
lated to the dimension of  .

5. Simulation and experimental results

In this section, simulations and experiments are designed and

implemented to further demonstrate the effectiveness of the pro-
posed control strategy.

5.1. Simulation results

The physical parameters of the UAVs-bar transportation system

are chosen as follows:

m1 = m2 = 2.0 kg, m3 = 0.8 kg, g = 9.8 m/s2 ,

l1 = l2 = 1.8 m, l3 = 0.03 m.

Two sets of simulations are performed with different initial and

desired positions by the proposed controller and the one without
the payload angle-related signal, which are shown as follows:

• Test 1: ξ 1s = [0.8, 2.0] m and ξ 2s = [2.6, 2.0] m

ξ 1d = [1.2, 3.5] m, ξ 2d = [3.0, 3.5] m
• Test 2: ξ 1s = [0.0, 3.0] m, ξ 2s = [1.8, 3.0] m
ξ 1d = [−0.8, 2.2] m, ξ 2d = [1.0, 2.2] m

The controller gains are selected as k py1 = 6.2, kdy1 = 7.8, k pz1 =
6.5, kdz1 = 5.8, k py2 = 6.2, kdy2 = 7.8, k pz2 = 6.5, kdz2 = 5.8, kλ =
1.4, y1 = 1.0, z1 = 0.5, y2 = 1.0, z2 = 0.5. The parameters of
the PD method are set the same as those of the proposed method,
and the parameter kλ is not utilized in the PD controller. The sim-
ulations are conducted in the MATLAB/Simulink environment with
a fixed sampling time of 1 ms.
The positions of two UAVs, the payload angles, the estimated
parameters are provided in Fig. 2 and Fig. 4. More specifically, the
UAVs’ positions are depicted in the first four graphs of Fig. 2(a)
and Fig. 4 (a), from which one can see that the proposed method
can achieve a similar UAV positioning performance when com-
pared with the PD method. The payload swing angles are shown
in the last three plots of Fig. 2(a) and Fig. 4 (a), where the superior
anti-swing performance of the proposed method can be observed.
Furthermore, the control inputs are illustrated in Fig. 3 and Fig. 5.

5.2. Experimental results

Fig. 2. Results for Simulation-Test 1 (black dashed line: desired positions; red dashed
As depicted in Fig. 6, the self-built experimental testbed is com- line: PD controller; blue solid line: proposed controller). (For interpretation of the
posed of the UAVs-bar transportation system, the Qualisys motion colors in the figure(s), the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

capture system, and the ground station. The marker-based Qualisys

motion capture system is employed to obtain the quadrotors’ posi-
tions, linear velocities, and payload swing angles. And the attitude
of each UAV is measured by the inertial measurement unit (IMU)
embedded in the Pixhawk. The barload is suspended beneath two
quadrotors equipped with Raspberry Pi. As an onboard computer,
the Raspberry Pi has the advantages of low price and ease of use.
The Mavros node is run on the Raspberry Pi to serve as a bridge
for data exchange between the ground station and the Pixhawk.
Specifically, the Raspberry Pi sends the position and attitude states
of each UAV and the payload angles to the ground station for con-
trol inputs calculation. This process is done through specific ROS
topics with the help of the wireless local area network (WLAN).
Based on the MAVLink protocol, the Raspberry Pi is also responsi-
ble for sending the control inputs calculated at the ground station
to the Pixhawk. The system parameters are listed as
m1 = m2 = 1.486 kg, m3 = 0.386 kg,
l1 = l2 = 1.21 m, l3 = 0.01 m, g = 9.8 m/s2 .

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Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Fig. 3. Control inputs for Simulation-Test 1 (red dashed line: PD controller; blue
solid line: proposed controller).

Remark 8. The control inputs are calculated at the ground station.

Also, these calculations can be completed on the Raspberry Pi. The
reason we choose to complete the calculations at the ground sta-
tion is twofold. Firstly, the Raspberry Pi has limited computing
resources, and the ground station can provide more computing
power. Secondly, from the perspective of code modification and
maintenance, it is more convenient to complete the calculations
of the control inputs at the ground station. As the payload position
is an unactuated state, only the motion of UAVs can be actually di-
rectly controlled. The desired inputs are computed at the ground
station and then transferred to the Pixhawk. Next, the pulse width
modulation (PWM) signals are sent from the Pixhawk to the elec-
tric motors.

To fully evaluate the performance of the proposed control

method, two groups of experiments are conducted on the testbed.
In the experiments, the control gains of the control scheme (55)
are chosen as k py1 = 4.5, kdy1 = 6.2, k pz1 = 6.2, kdz1 = 8.0, k py2 =
4.5, kdy2 = 6.2, k pz2 = 6.2, kdz2 = 8.0, kλ = 0.15, y1 = 5.0, z1 =
5.0, y2 = 5.0, z2 = 5.0. Also, comparative experiments are con-
ducted with the classic PD controller, whose control gains are
given as k py1 = 4.5, kdy1 = 6.2, k pz1 = 6.2, kdz1 = 8.0, k py2 = 4.5,
kdy2 = 6.2, k pz2 = 6.2, kdz2 = 8.0.
Experiment 1 (Control Performance Tests): Two groups of tests
are conducted with different initial and desired positions to as-
sess the point-to-point transportation performance of the proposed
method:

• Test 1: ξ 1s = [−1.5, 2.0] m, ξ 2s = [0.0, 2.0] m
ξ 1d = [−0.3, 2.3] m, ξ 2d = [1.2, 2.3] m
• Test 2: ξ 1s = [0.0, 2.2] m, ξ 2s = [1.5, 2.2] m
ξ 1d = [−1.2, 1.8] m, ξ 2d = [0.3, 1.8] m
where ξ 1s and ξ 2s denote the initial positions of two quadrotors,
ξ 1d and ξ 2d are the desired ones.
Fig. 7 and Fig. 9 show the experimental results of the PD and
proposed controller, including the quadrotor positions ξ 1 and ξ 2 ,
the payload swing θ1 , θ2 , and θ3 , and the estimated parameters
d̂ y1 , d̂ z1 , d̂ y2 , and d̂ z2 . It can be seen from the first four graphs
of Fig. 7(a) and Fig. 9(a) that both the two methods can drive
the quadrotors to the desired positions. The payload angles are
depicted in the last three graphs of Fig. 7(a) and Fig. 9(a). It is
Fig. 4. Results for Simulation-Test 2 (black dashed line: desired positions; red dashed
line: PD controller; blue solid line: proposed controller).
obvious that the values of θ1 and θ2 are relatively large, which is
mainly due to the high speed of two UAVs along y and z direction.
From the experiment results of payload angles, one can see that
the payload angles θ1 and θ2 naturally decay to zero under the
PD method, while those angles recover quickly with the proposed
method. Specifically, the proposed method efficiently eliminates
payload angles in about 4 s. As for comparative methods, it takes
much longer time to reach the same goal. This difference is largely
attributed to the incorporation of swing-related information in the
control efforts shown in Fig. 8 and Fig. 10.

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Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Fig. 5. Control inputs for Simulation-Test 2 (red dashed line: PD controller; blue
solid line: proposed controller).

Fig. 6. The experiment platform.

To sum up, the proposed method can achieve the main objec-
tive, i.e., rapidly position the UAV while efficiently suppressing the
payload swing.

Remark 9. Each UAV moves at a high speed with a step desired po-
sition input, which results in big payload swing angles. And these
swing angles can recover quickly with the proposed method when Fig. 7. Results for Experiment 1-Test 1 (black dashed line: desired positions; red
compared with the PD approach, which illustrates a great anti- dashed line: PD controller; blue solid line: proposed controller).
swing performance of the proposed method.

Experiment 2 (Robustness Tests): In this experiment, several sud-

den disturbances are exerted on the system to test the robustness
of the proposed method. The quadrotors initial positions and the
desired ones are set as ξ 1s = [−1.5, 2.2] m, ξ 2s = [0.0, 2.2] m,
ξ 1d = [−1.5, 2.2] m, and ξ 2d = [0.0, 2.2] m. Three man-made
disturbances are applied to the system at t = 10.8 s, t = 30.8 s,
and t = 50.8 s, respectively.
The robustness verification results are illustrated in Fig. 11,
and the control input is presented in Fig. 12. As can be seen
in Fig. 11(a), the proposed method eliminates the payload swing
more quickly and efficiently than the PD controller. It merits to
mention that, the proposed method faces larger disturbances than
the PD method. A large displacement of each UAV along y direc-
tion can be obtained from Fig. 11(a). The reason for this result is
that the external forces exerted to the barload are along the y di-
rection and the proposed controller drives each UAV to move in
the y direction for eliminating the payload swing angles. In addi-
tion, due to the lack of persistent excitation, parameter estimates
usually involve large uncertainty [42]. As a result, the estimated

9
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Fig. 8. The control input for Experiment 1-Test 1 (red dashed line: PD controller;
blue solid line: proposed controller).

parameters of d̂ y1 , d̂ z1 , d̂ y2 , and d̂ z2 do not converge to a same

value after disturbances in different tests.
In summary, the proposed method presents excellent robust-
ness against deliberately added disturbances in comparison with
the PD method in terms of payload swing elimination perfor-
mance.

Remark 10. It is extremely difficult to prove the robustness of

a system with nonlinear and strong coupling properties, such as
the cooperative transportation system proposed in this paper. And
a good transient performance is achieved by introducing proper
swing angle-related state feedback into the controller. As a result,
the payload swing recovers quickly in the presence of external dis-
turbances. Based on the above mentioned, it is concluded that the
controller robustness can be achieved. The experimental results
shown in Fig. 11 provide convincing support for the above con-
clusion. Although no uncertainty is considered during the design
of the controller, achieving rapid UAV positioning and suppressing
payload swing simultaneously through control methods is difficult
and challenging, which has not been addressed in previous co-
operative transportation tasks. In future work, we will focus on
addressing the above issues while taking uncertainty into account.

5.3. Discussion

The total energy of the system can be expressed as (18) when

only considering the kinetic energy as well as the potential energy.
By including error-related terms in (18) generates
1  1
Eξ = E + ξ K p ξ + ω̃ −1
ω̃ξ (70)
2 2 ξ ξ Fig. 9. Results for Experiment 1-Test 2 (black dashed line: desired positions; red
dashed line: PD controller; blue solid line: proposed controller).
Then, by choosing the Lyapunov function presented in (70), a nat-
ural proportional derivative control law can be expressed as
1) From the perspective of UAV positioning performance, the pro-
pd
u pd = − K p ξ − K d ξ̇ + ξ ω̂ξ (71) posed method can achieve a similar performance with the PD
method for the point-to-point transportation task. The differ-
wherein ωξ = [d y1 , d z1 , d y2 , d z2 ] , ω̂ξ is an online estimate for
pd
ence between the two methods is not significant in terms of
ωξ , which is generated in the following manner: the positioning accuracy and arrival time, which can be ob-

ω̂˙ ξpd = −
tained in Fig. 2, Fig. 4, Fig. 7, and Fig. 9.
ξ ξ ξ̇ . (72)
2) The simulation and experimental results provide compelling
Next, some comparisons between the PD approach and the pro- evidence for the satisfactory antiswing performance of the
posed method are concluded based on the simulation and experi- proposed method. Specifically, the payload swing angles re-
mental results. cover quickly under the proposed method. Experimental re-

10
Y. Chai, X. Liang, Z. Yang et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 126 (2022) 107510

Fig. 10. The control input for Experiment 1-Test 2 (red dashed line: PD controller;
blue solid line: proposed controller).

sults in Fig. 11 also show the robustness of the proposed

method against external disturbances. The improvement of
payload swing suppression performance suggests that the pro-
posed method can be more effectively applied to the practical
cooperative transportation tasks than the PD method.

6. Conclusion

To achieve fast accurate UAV positioning and effective payload

swing suppression simultaneously, a novel adaptive control strat-
egy is presented in this paper. Based on the artificially constructed
UAV-payload unified signal, the energy storage function is defined.
Then, the adaptive control law is developed on the basis of the
energy function. By utilizing the Lyapunov method, the closed-
loop system stability is proved. Experimental results show that the
proposed method achieves better performance against parameter
uncertainties and external disturbances. Future work will be fo-
cused on the online antiswing trajectory planning for collaborative
aerial transportation systems.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-

cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary material related to this article can be found on-

line at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2022.107510.
Fig. 11. Results for Experiment 2 (black dashed line: desired positions; red dashed
line: PD controller; blue solid line: proposed controller).
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