A Linkage-Based Gripper Design with Optimized Data Transmission for Aerial Pick-and-Place Tasks

Aerial grasping is beginning to revolutionize industrial applications through robotics in Industry 4.0. However, this sector still lacks a gripper mechanism effective in autonomous grasping of in-house cargo and simple enough for rapid generation and implementation on a variety of industrial drones. A novel four-bar linkage rigid gripper was developed to address these challenges. This gripper is constructed of lightweight multi-material 3D printed components facilitating rapid construction and designs. The linkage setup allows for easy scaling while modular end effectors optimize performance for varying gripping applications. Manual gripping tests along with autonomous pick-and-place missions were conducted to evaluate the overall performance. The results demonstrate viability and point towards design adjustments and robust control algorithms for improved autonomous grasping under ground effect. The gripper in this work was designed and tested on the COEX Clover Drone available in the host lab. Its design can be extended and adjusted to any other aerial vehicles in general.