Developing an ultra-lightweight capturing solution for organic, compliant bodies.

Abstract

In recent years, the field of robotics has seen significant advancements in developing mechanisms for indexing irregular shapes. Despite such advancements, current mechanisms often fail to effectively balance the trade-offs between ultra-lightweight design and the necessary durability and the aerodynamic stability required for airborne applications. Additionally, existing solutions struggle to adapt dynamically to capture and hold irregular shapes efficiently, leading to inflexible performance in real-world scenarios. There is a need for an effective and efficient tool that seamlessly integrates these stringent requirements for dynamic target retrieval. In order to optimize our design for the specific purpose of mounting to DTR blimps, we explored many different low-density materials, geometric outlines, and actuation methods. In order to verify our designs we plan on pairing fluid dynamic simulations with physical scale testing. Our research develops a mechanism that minimizes impact on system weight and aerodynamics while maintaining rigidity and reliability of the design to be used in DTR.