Proximal cooperative aerial manipulation with vertically stacked drones.
basic_science · Level V
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- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40993393.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41586-025-09575-x.
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Abstract
Enabling vertical-stack proximal cooperation between multirotor flying robots can facilitate the execution of complex aerial manipulation tasks. However, vertical-stack proximal flight is commonly regarded as a dangerous condition that should be avoided because of persistent and intense downwash interference generated between flying robots<sup>1,2</sup>. Here we propose a cooperative aerial manipulation system, called FlyingToolbox, that can work stably with sub-centimetre-level docking accuracy under vertical-stack flight conditions. The system consists of a toolbox micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) and a manipulator MAV. The robotic arm of the manipulator MAV can autonomously dock with a tool carried by the toolbox MAV, in which the docking accuracy reaches 0.80 ± 0.33 cm in the presence of downwash airflow of up to 13.18 m s<sup>-1</sup>. By enabling midair tool exchange in proximity, FlyingToolbox resolves the paradox between flight proximity and manipulation accuracy, suggesting a new model for heterogeneous and interactive flying robot cooperation in diverse applications<sup>3-5</sup>.