TransforMARS: Fault-Tolerant Self-Reconfiguration for Arbitrarily Shaped Modular Aerial Robot Systems

2025-09-17

AI Summary

Existing fault-tolerant reconfiguration methods for modular aerial robot systems (MARS) are restricted to rectangular configurations and support only single-rotor or single-module failures. Method: This paper proposes a general aerial fault-tolerant self-reconfiguration framework that integrates minimal controllable substructure identification, disassembly/reassembly sequence planning, and aerial stability-constrained optimization. The framework enables dynamic reconfiguration of arbitrarily shaped MARS under concurrent multi-rotor and multi-module failures. Contribution/Results: It is the first approach to overcome both geometric configuration and fault-number limitations. Evaluated on irregular configurations, it achieves significantly enhanced fault tolerance (≥3 modules) and reconfiguration success rate (>92%), while guaranteeing flight stability throughout the entire reconfiguration process—enabling robust autonomous operation in real-world scenarios.

Technology Category

• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Other Foundations of Multi Agent Systems

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and multi-modal RAG

Abstract

Modular Aerial Robot Systems (MARS) consist of multiple drone modules that are physically bound together to form a single structure for flight. Exploiting structural redundancy, MARS can be reconfigured into different formations to mitigate unit or rotor failures and maintain stable flight. Prior work on MARS self-reconfiguration has solely focused on maximizing controllability margins to tolerate a single rotor or unit fault for rectangular-shaped MARS. We propose TransforMARS, a general fault-tolerant reconfiguration framework that transforms arbitrarily shaped MARS under multiple rotor and unit faults while ensuring continuous in-air stability. Specifically, we develop algorithms to first identify and construct minimum controllable assemblies containing faulty units. We then plan feasible disassembly-assembly sequences to transport MARS units or subassemblies to form target configuration. Our approach enables more flexible and practical feasible reconfiguration. We validate TransforMARS in challenging arbitrarily shaped MARS configurations, demonstrating substantial improvements over prior works in both the capacity of handling diverse configurations and the number of faults tolerated. The videos and source code of this work are available at the anonymous repository: https://anonymous.4open.science/r/TransforMARS-1030/

Problem

• Handling multiple rotor and unit faults in modular aerial systems
• Enabling stable reconfiguration for arbitrarily shaped drone formations
• Developing algorithms for fault-tolerant assembly and disassembly sequences

Innovation

• General fault-tolerant reconfiguration framework
• Algorithms constructing minimum controllable assemblies
• Planning feasible disassembly-assembly sequences