Robust cooperative aerial payload transport under mass uncertainty using DSMC-controlled heterogeneous drones

Efficient and reliable delivery of irregularly shaped payloads with uneven mass distribution faces significant challenges, specially in maintaining stability, minimizing oscillations, and ensure precise trajectory tracking. The use of heterogeneous drones with varying capabilities offers a promising solution for overcoming these challenges by using coordinated lifting and transportation. In this proposed work, we present a distributed sliding mode controller (DSMC) strategy to coordinate heterogeneous drones for lifting and delivering the irregular payloads with uneven mass distribution. The proposed methodology calculates the center of mass of the payload and find optimal lifting points to suppress the payload oscillations during transportation. The heterogeneous drones dynamically synchronize their thrust and trajectory to ensure stable lifting, maintaining safety distance between them, and accurate trajectory tracking for delivering the payload to desired location. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller in maintaining stability, and achieving precise payload delivery while adhering to thrust and safety constraints. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that DSMC consistently outperforms a classical PID controller across all major performance. This study highlights the potential of heterogeneous drones coordination for advanced payload delivery tasks, paving the way for efficient and scalable aerial logistics solutions.