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This paper introduces a dual-drone system for mid-air docking, employing a leader-follower formation with passive magnetic latching and a progress-aware mission supervisor to manage docking phases. The system integrates a ROS 2-based software stack with Crazyflie/PX4 interfaces and synchronized logging for benchmark evaluation. Experimental results, both in simulation and real-world scenarios, demonstrate the platform's effectiveness using metrics like formation error, docking success rate, and time-to-dock, providing a basis for comparing docking strategies.
A complete hardware-software platform enables statistically grounded comparison of mid-air docking strategies for dual-drone aerial manipulation.
Reliable midair docking between small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is essential for modular aerial cooperation and manipulation, but it requires precise relative-pose control and repeatable platform under tight thrust and payload constraints. We present a dual-drone docking platform where two quadrotors operate in a leader-follower formation and dock using a lightweight modular frame with passive magnetic latching. A progress-aware mission supervisor manages phase transitions: approach, alignment, capture, and settle. This platform integrates a complete hardware-software stack (ROS 2 with Crazyflie/PX4 interfaces) and synchronized logging for benchmark evaluation. We evaluate the platform in simulation and real-world experiments using quantitative metrics such as formation error, baseline and yaw consistency, docking success rate, time-to-dock, and failure-mode statistics. The platform enables statistically grounded comparison of docking supervision and synchronization strategies and provides a practical testbed for modular aerial cooperation and repeatable midair aerial manipulation.
