Automatic Identification of a Modular Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) with Experimental Verification

In a modular robotic system, with the possible multiple configurations of potentially an arbitrary number of modules, knowledge about the configuration of the system is essential. In this paper, we consider the problem of identifying the configuration of a modular aerial robotic system. In particular, we consider the case when positions of the modules in the assembly structure are unknown. We propose an automatic identification approach which consists of two parts: a calibration motion, and an identification algorithm, which are analyzed in detail. We verify our approach experimentally; we apply the proposed approach to a novel modular unmanned aerial system (UAS), namely a fractal tetrahedron assembly.