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Abstract

This talk will present some recent theoretical and experimental results in the relatively new topic of Bilateral Aerial Teleoperation of Multiple UAVs. In this non-conventional teleoperation field a human operator partially controls the behavior of a semi-autonomous swarm of UAVs by means of one or more haptic interfaces, and receives back a force cue which is informative both of the swarm tracking performance and of some relevant properties of the surrounding environment (e.g., presence of obstacles or other threats). This kind of systems are designed in order to enhance the telepresence of the operator and the quality of the human robot interaction, especially when applied to practical scenarios, like search and rescue, surveillance, exploration and mapping. In particular, the focus of the talk will be on the design of a stable bilateral interconnection between the user and the swarm of UAVs, considered as a deformable object with a given shape (top-down approach) to be achieved with suitable formation control algorithms using either distance-only or bearing-only sensors.