The popularity of using vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial systems continues to rise. Although the use of these devices seems to be almost limitless, the main drawback is still the battery capacity and the need to replace or recharge it several times per hour. This article provides a technical overview of the development of an experimental mechatronic system for automatic drone battery management called Droneport. It was developed as a system with a landing platform, automatic battery exchange and recharging outside the drone, allowing a quick return to the mission. The first part presents its mechanical design, installed instrumentation and software environment. The next part is devoted to the description of the individual hardware components, highlighting the specific problems that had to be solved to optimize size, weight and robustness requirements. The final section summarizes our observations regarding the contribution of this tool to the autonomy of drones or UAVs in general.

The paper deals with development of a methodology for mechatronic system design using state-of-the-art model-based system engineering methods. A simple flexible robotic arm is considered as a benchmark problem for the evaluation of various techniques used in the phases of modelling, analysis, control system design, validation, and implementation. The flexible nature of the mechanical structure introduces inherently oscillatory dynamics in the target bandwidth range, which complicates all the above-mentioned design steps. This paper demonstrates the process of deriving a complex nonlinear model of the flexible arm setup. An initial idea about the plant dynamics is acquired from analytical modelling using the Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. A more thorough understanding is subsequently acquired from finite element analysis. Linearisation and order reduction are the next steps necessary for the derivation of a simplified control-relevant model. A time-dependent variable parameter of load mass position is considered and a robust controller is subsequently designed in order to fulfil certain performance criteria for all the admissible plant configurations. This is performed using a recent H-infinity loop shaping method for fixed structure controller design. The results are validated by means of a physical plant, comparing the experimental data with the model predictions.

The paper deals with analysis of fundamental performance limitations of elastic servo drives with significant mechanical compliance in the driven load. Two-mass system is chosen as a general representation of a flexible mechanism with oscillatory dynamics. A problem of PID compensator tuning is considered since this control algorithm is still prevalent in industrial motion control systems. The provided analysis reveals an essential importance of the resonance ratio parameter and derives its range suitable for convenient controller design. The theoretical analysis is supported by experimental results.