This paper presents a novel bilateral shared framework for a cooperative aerial transportation and manipulation system composed by a team of micro aerial vehicles with a cable-suspended payload. The human operator is in charge of steering the payload and he/she can also change online the desired shape of the formation of robots. At the same time, an obstacle avoidance algorithm is in charge of avoiding collisions with the static environment. The signals from the user and from the obstacle avoidance are blended together in the trajectory generation module, by means of a tracking controller and a filter called dynamic input boundary (DIB). The DIB filters out the directions of motions that would bring the system too close to singularities, according to a suitable metric. The loop with the user is finally closed with a force feedback that is informative of the mismatch between the operator’s commands and the trajectory of the payload. This feedback intuitively increases the user’s awareness of obstacles or configurations of the system that are close to singularities. The proposed framework is validated by means of realistic hardware-in-the-loop simulations with a person operating the system via a force-feedback haptic interface.

本文提出了一种新颖的双边共享框架，用于由一组带有电缆悬挂有效载荷的微型飞行器组成的协作空中运输和操纵系统。人类操作员负责操纵有效载荷，他/她还可以在线更改机器人编队的所需形状。同时，避障算法负责避免与静态环境的碰撞。通过跟踪控制器和称为动态输入边界 (DIB) 的滤波器，来自用户和避障的信号在轨迹生成模块中混合在一起。根据合适的度量标准，DIB 会过滤掉会使系统过于接近奇点的运动方向。与用户的循环最终以一个力反馈结束，该力反馈提供了操作员命令与有效载荷轨迹之间不匹配的信息。这种反馈直观地提高了用户对接近奇点的系统的障碍或配置的认识。所提出的框架通过真实的硬件在环模拟得到验证，人员通过力反馈触觉界面操作系统。