Novel Deployable Landing System for UAV Based on the Tensegrity Principle

Unmanned aerial vehicles are a valuable tool for commercial and civil duties, representing an important market for the electronics industry. A common style of drone is the quadcopter, and most manufacturers present similar designs but with unique specifications. One characteristic that these designs have in common is the use of rigid landing structures that are unable to adapt to different environments. This paper proposes the use of the tensegrity principle for the design of a deployable landing system for quadcopters. The main concept behind this scheme is described and a CAE simulation is presented to verify the feasibility of the design.