Design of an Automatic Item Pick-up System for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Year 2020, Volume: 16 Issue: 1, 25 - 33, 27.03.2020

Erdinç Altuğ , Mehmet Emin Mumcuoğlu İlgaz Yüksel

Abstract

The interest
of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for the purpose of delivery has increased
significantly in recent years. However, the abilities of those vehicles are
quite limited since the arms have not being designed considering the UAV
geometry and the center of gravity (CG) changes. Usual approach taken by
various researchers were to use a regular gripper or a robotic manipulator,
which is not quite satisfactory for access. In this paper, the design of a
mechanism for the purpose of catching and holding various shaped objects is
proposed. The mechanism, which is based on a double four-bar mechanism, has
been designed for minimum CG change. Moreover, the mechanism has the ability to
grap objects from locations below as well as next to UAV. Besides, with the
help of the onboard controller and camera, the arm acts as an independent
entity to identify the position of the part, catch it, and autonomously hold it.
It is also possible to carry more than one object with a net structure inside
the mechanism storage area. The gripper has been designed and manufactured with
flexible parts so that it can hold several geometric shaped objects. The
UAV-arm has been designed and manufactured. It is installed on a UAV. Initial
tests verify that it can identify and catch spherical, cylindrical, and box
shaped pieces up to 650 grams.

Keywords

Robotics arm design for UAV, Flexible Gripper, Four-bar mechanism

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