Passive Perching and Landing Mechanism for Multirotor Flying Robot

This paper proposes a mechanism for a multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle to perch at the tip of a cylindrical object. The proposed mechanism does not require an additional actuator such as a motor by converting its own weight into a gripping force at the time of perching. It also shows that a gripping force larger than its own weight can be generated based on a boost mechanism by appropriately selecting the design parameters. In addition, the proposed mechanism has a structure that can be not only used for perching at the tip of a cylindrical object, but also as a landing gear when landing on flat ground. Furthermore, we attached a depth camera to the proposed mechanism and obtain color and depth images of the target object to be grasped while flying so that automatic positioning can be executed based on the acquired images. Through indoor and outdoor experiments, it was confirmed that the expected perching and landing could be performed.