Dual-drone system achieves reliable midair docking with magnetic latches

A team led by Yifan Cai has developed a complete system for midair docking between two small quadrotors, enabling modular aerial cooperation and manipulation. The platform uses a leader-follower formation where the follower drone approaches and docks to the leader using a lightweight mechanical frame with passive magnetic latches. A progress-aware mission supervisor coordinates the transition through four distinct phases—approach, alignment, capture, and settle—ensuring reliable, repeatable docking under tight thrust and payload constraints. The entire software stack runs on ROS 2 with Crazyflie and PX4 interfaces, providing synchronized logging for detailed benchmark evaluation.

The system was tested both in simulation and in real-world flights. The researchers measured formation error, baseline and yaw consistency, docking success rate, time-to-dock, and failure-mode statistics. This allows statistically grounded comparison of different docking supervision and synchronization strategies. The platform serves as a practical testbed for modular aerial cooperation and repeatable midair aerial manipulation, with implications for collaborative drone teams, in-flight repairs, and reconfigurable aerial robots. The work was accepted for the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE 2026) in Shenyang, China.