Resilient consensus tracking control and vibration suppression of moving multiple helicopter flexible slung-load systems

Abstract

This study investigates the resilient consensus tracking control and vibration suppression of moving multiple helicopter flexible slung-load (HFSL) systems subject to unknown actuator faults and disturbances. First, a set of ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations are utilized to model the moving multiple HFSL systems, where it is assumed that only some of the helicopters can receive the target position information directly. Next, with the help of the undirected communication topology and adaptive fault compensation mechanism, the resilient consensus tracking and anti-swing control schemes are proposed, where the controller at the helicopter end is used to track the target position and the controller at the flexible sling end is employed to achieve swing suppression of the flexible sling. Finally, the bounded stability of the closed-loop systems is demonstrated, which means that loads can be transported to the target position by moving multiple helicopters and swing effects of flexible slings can be effectively suppressed, and the effectiveness of the proposed control method is verified by simulation results.