DroneGear: A Novel Robotic Landing Gear for Multi-Copters and UAV

We have developed a collaborative robotic legs for multicopter landing on uneven surfaces. The DroneGear contains four compliant robotic legs of two degrees of freedom each. The innovative optical torque sensor is integrated into the knee joint of each leg to provide timely adaptation to rough terrain in an unknown environment. Additionally, inertial measurement unit is embedded into the passive footpad of each leg for estimation of relief profile in the landing zone. The results of the experiments show that the DroneGear can be successfully used for the safe hexacopter landing on the different angle slopes, plane, step surfaces, and for terrain profile estimation as well.

Authors: Yuri S. Sarkisov, Grigoriy A. Yashin, Evgeny V. Tsykunov, Dzmitry Tsetserukou.
University: Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology
Published in: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters ( Volume: 3 , Issue: 3 , July 2018 ).
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/...