The SHERPA gripper: Grasping of small-scale UAVs

This paper presents the mechatronic design of a compact gripper, intended to manipulate unmanned aerial vehicles in search and rescue missions. The gripper latches onto a custom interface, that is mounted on the aerial vehicle, and achieves a secure form closure through a combination of a passive latching mechanism and a driving dwell mechanism. The grasping procedure is facilitated by the gripper's shape, which guides it into the interface, making for a simple pick-up operation that is robust to small misalignments between gripper and interface. The design of the gripper is presented, and the features of its components analyzed. Successful experiments validate that the gripper meets its requirements, and presents an effective solution for grasping objects like UAVs.