Aerial robots have garnered significant attention due to their potential applications in various industries, such as inspection, search and rescue, and drone delivery. Successful missions often depend on the ability of these robots to grasp and land effectively. This paper presents a novel modular soft gripper design tailored explicitly for aerial grasping and landing operations. The proposed modular pneumatic soft gripper incorporates a feed-forward proportional controller to regulate pressure, enabling compliant gripping capabilities. The modular connectors of the soft fingers offer two configurations for the 4-tip soft gripper, H-base (cylindrical) and X-base (spherical), allowing adaptability to different target objects. Additionally, the gripper can serve as a soft landing gear when deflated, eliminating the need for an extra landing gear. This design reduces weight, simplifies aerial manipulation control, and enhances flight efficiency. We demonstrate the efficacy of indoor aerial grasping and achieve a maximum payload of 217 g using the proposed soft aerial vehicle and its H-base pneumatic soft gripper (808 g).

翻译：空中机器人因其在检查、搜救、无人机配送等多个行业的潜在应用而备受关注。成功的任务往往依赖于这些机器人有效进行抓取和着陆的能力。本文提出了一种专门针对空中抓取与着陆操作的新型模块化软体夹爪设计。所提出的模块化气动软体夹爪采用前馈比例控制器来调节压力，从而实现了顺应性抓取能力。软体手指的模块化连接器为四指尖软体夹爪提供了两种构型：H型底座（圆柱形）和X型底座（球形），使其能够适应不同的目标物体。此外，该夹爪在放气状态时能充作软体起落架，无需额外配备起落架。这种设计减轻了重量，简化了空中操控控制，并提升了飞行效率。我们通过室内空中抓取实验验证了其有效性，并利用所提出的软体飞行器及其H型底座气动软体夹爪（总重808克）实现了最大217克的负载能力。