Homecs.ROarXiv:2605.29410

A Progress-Aware Leader-Follower Midair Docking System for Dual-Drone Aerial Manipulation

cs.RO2026-05v1license

Abstract

Reliable midair docking between small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is essential for modular aerial cooperation and manipulation, but it requires precise relative-pose control and repeatable platform under tight thrust and payload constraints. We present a dual-drone docking platform where two quadrotors operate in a leader-follower formation and dock using a lightweight modular frame with passive magnetic latching. A progress-aware mission supervisor manages phase transitions: approach, alignment, capture, and settle. This platform integrates a complete hardware-software stack (ROS 2 with Crazyflie/PX4 interfaces) and synchronized logging for benchmark evaluation. We evaluate the platform in simulation and real-world experiments using quantitative metrics such as formation error, baseline and yaw consistency, docking success rate, time-to-dock, and failure-mode statistics. The platform enables statistically grounded comparison of docking supervision and synchronization strategies and provides a practical testbed for modular aerial cooperation and repeatable midair aerial manipulation.

Comments: This paper has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 2026 IEEE 22nd International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2026), August 17-21, 2026, Shenyang, China

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.29410,
  title  = {A Progress-Aware Leader-Follower Midair Docking System for Dual-Drone Aerial Manipulation},
  author = {Yifan Cai and Jan Ming Kevin Tan and Xiangqi Li and Chenzhe Jin and Narsimlu Kemsaram and Valerio Modugno},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.29410},
  year   = {2026}
}