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arXiv · 2604.25766

Sensitivity-Based Tube NMPC for Cooperative Aerial Structures Under Parametric Uncertainty

Giuseppe Silano·Quentin Sablé·Marco Tognon·Luigi Iannelli·Antonio Franchi
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Abstract

This paper presents a sensitivity-based tube Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) framework for cooperative aerial chains under bounded parametric uncertainty. We consider a planar two-vehicle chain connected by rigid links, modeled with input-rate actuation to enforce slew-rate and magnitude limits on thrust and torque. Robustness to uncertainty in link mass, length, and inertia is achieved by propagating first-order parametric state sensitivities along the horizon and using them to compute online constraint-tightening margins. We robustify an inter-link separation constraint, implemented via a smooth cosine embedding, and thrust-magnitude bounds. The method is implemented in MATLAB and evaluated with boundary-hugging maneuvers and Monte-Carlo uncertainty sampling. Results show improved constraint margins under uncertainty with tracking performance comparable to nominal NMPC.

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Giuseppe Silano, Quentin Sablé, Marco Tognon, Luigi Iannelli, Antonio Franchi. 2026-04-28. Sensitivity-Based Tube NMPC for Cooperative Aerial Structures Under Parametric Uncertainty. https://doi.org/10.1109/icuas69441.2026.11598699

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