A Flying Gripper Based on Cuboid Modular Robots

Modlab UPenn present a novel flying modular platform capable of grasping and transporting objects. It is composed of four cooperative identical modules where each is based on a quadrotor within a cuboid frame with a docking mechanism. Pairs of modules are able to fly independently and physically connect by matching their vertical edges forming a hinge.

Four one degree of freedom (DOF) connections results in a one DOF four-bar linkage that can be used to grasp external objects. In this paper, we propose a decentralized method that allows the Flying Gripper to control its position, attitude and aperture angle. In our experiments, we tested the hovering performance for different aperture angles and with a grasped object. The performance for a closing and opening motion was also verified.⁠