@conference {2018p-GabTogPalFra, title = {A Study on Force-based Collaboration in Flying Swarms}, booktitle = {11th Int. Conf. on Swarm Intelligence ANTS 2018}, year = {2018}, month = {10/2018}, address = {Rome, Italy}, abstract = {This work investigates collaborative aerial transportation by swarms of agents based only on implicit information, enabled by the physical interaction among the agents and the environment. Such a coordinating mechanism in collaborative transportation is a basic skill in groups of social animals. We consider cable-suspended objects transported by a swarm of flying robots and we formu- late several hypothesis on the behavior of the overall system which are validated thorough numerical study. In particular, we show that a nonzero internal force re- duces to one the number of asymptotically stable equilibria and that the internal force intensity is directly connected to the convergence rate. As such, the internal force represents the cornerstone of a communication-less cooperative manipula- tion paradigm in swarms of flying robots. We also show how a swarm can achieve a stable transportation despite the imprecise knowledge of the system parameters.}, attachments = {https://homepages.laas.fr/afranchi/robotics/sites/default/files/2018p-GabTogPalFra-preprint.pdf}, author = {Chiara Gabellieri and Marco Tognon and Lucia Palottino and Antonio Franchi} }