English

Manipulation of Elasto-Flexible Cables with Single or Multiple UAVs

Robotics 2025-10-14 v2 Systems and Control Systems and Control

Abstract

This work considers a large class of systems composed of multiple quadrotors manipulating deformable and extensible cables. The cable is described via a discretized representation, which decomposes it into linear springs interconnected through lumped-mass passive spherical joints. Sets of flat outputs are found for the systems. Numerical simulations support the findings by showing cable manipulation relying on flatness-based trajectories. Eventually, we present an experimental validation of the effectiveness of the proposed discretized cable model for a two-robot example. Moreover, a closed-loop controller based on the identified model and using cable-output feedback is experimentally tested.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2503.04304,
  title  = {Manipulation of Elasto-Flexible Cables with Single or Multiple UAVs},
  author = {Chiara Gabellieri and Lars Teeuwen and Yaolei Shen and Antonio Franchi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.04304},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:09:00.956Z