Motion Control for Aerial and Ground Vehicle Autonomous Platooning

Abstract

In this paper, a navigation control for a platoon composed of a ground and an aerial vehicle is proposed. The aim of this work is to define a platooning system that exploits the advantages of both types of robots: while the aerial drone is faster and is not affected by the terrain, the ground vehicle has more autonomy and can carry heavier payloads. The proposed control system allows the aerial vehicle to follow the ground vehicle, maintaining a desired relative position, and to assist in navigation by providing information about the environment. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulation and experimental results.