Repeatable Energy-Efficient Perching for Flapping-Wing Robots Using Soft Grippers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel energy-efficient perching system with soft grippers for flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles, enabling long-term missions and safe operations in cluttered environments.

Contribution

The paper presents a new active-passive actuation framework and a lightweight prototype that achieves repeatable perching and take-off for FWMAVs, improving their operational capabilities.

Findings

Successful free-flight landing and take-off demonstrated

Energy-conserving actuation system maintained perch indefinitely

Extensive telemetry data supports system behavior analysis

Abstract

With the emergence of new flapping-wing micro aerial vehicle (FWMAV) designs, a need for extensive and advanced mission capabilities arises. FWMAVs try to adapt and emulate the flight features of birds and flying insects. While current designs already achieve high manoeuvrability, they still almost entirely lack perching and take-off abilities. These capabilities could, for instance, enable long-term monitoring and surveillance missions, and operations in cluttered environments or in proximity to humans and animals. We present the development and testing of a framework that enables repeatable perching and take-off for small to medium-sized FWMAVs, utilising soft, non-damaging grippers. Thanks to its novel active-passive actuation system, an energy-conserving state can be achieved and indefinitely maintained while the vehicle is perched. A prototype of the proposed system weighing under 39 g was manufactured and extensively tested on a 110 g flapping-wing robot. Successful free-flight tests demonstrated the full mission cycle of landing, perching and subsequent take-off. The telemetry data recorded during the flights yields extensive insight into the system's behaviour and is a valuable step towards full automation and optimisation of the entire take-off and landing cycle.