Design and Experiment of a Sloth-inspired UAV Perching Climbing Grasping Mechanism

Energy consumption and acoustic noise can be significantly reduced through perching in the sustained flights of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). However, existing flying perched robots lack good mobility and adaptability to environmental changes. In order to solve the above problems, this paper proposes an adaptable UAV perching climbing grasping mechanism (UPCGM) from the structure and movement of sloths. The main innovation lies in the design of a step foot mechanism (SFM) consists of four step foot for perching, climbing, and grasping. Each foot has two servos, one at the hip joint and one at the knee joint, and a 304 stainless steel with curvature. We used genetic algorithm to optimize the size of SFM with the goal of stronger climbing ability and anti-interference ability. With experiments on its performance towards different objects, it could perch on different types of objects in outdoor environment and perform controlled movement on climbing targets, as well as target objects grasping and carrying by integrating it with a quadcopter.