Autonomous Drone Handoff 

This paper introduces an Emergency Battery Service (EBS) as an item handoff system for drones, where an EBS drone delivers a fresh battery to a field-deployed drone with a depleted one. The authors design a novel battery transfer mechanism and drone localization approach using the Cross Marker Position (CMP) method. Key challenges include achieving a stable, balanced handoff and precise localization of the receiving drone. To mitigate downwash effects due to the drones' vertical proximity, the EBS drone adopts a diagonal alignment with the receiver, reducing the gap between them to 0.5 meters. CFD analysis reveals that diagonal alignment, rather than perpendicular, reduces turbulence, and this configuration is verified through airflow and thrust output measurements. The CMP-based localization method achieves positional accuracy within 0.9 cm for the EBS drone. Experimental results demonstrate that the transfer mechanism enables a successful mid-air handoff within 5 seconds, with the EBS drone maintaining a 0.5 m vertical distance from the receiver drone, where turbulence of up to 4 m/s does not hinder the transfer.

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https://doi.org/10.1145/3636534.3649382