Robotic Helicopter That Can Grasp A Payload

Like the Grand Theft Auto RC missions come to life, this helicopter can grasp objects for transport. They don’t have to be a special size or shape, and it can lift them even if they are not centered. This is thanks to a load-balancing hand (originally developed as a prosthesis) that relies on flexible joints and a tendon-like closing mechanism. As you can see in the video, the light-weight chopper has an on-board camera so that the operator can see what is being picked up. This little guy has no problem lifting objects that are over one kilogram while remaining stable in the air.

[Thanks Paul]

10 thoughts on “Robotic Helicopter That Can Grasp A Payload

  1. epic win!

    Interestingly, with a very slight modification it could be used as a “death from above” BB grenade dropper for pwning the opposition in Airsoft wars… :-)

    Good luck defending against that one, bonus if the heli includes impact detection so that the opposing team can “shoot it down”…

    obviously it would need various failsafes to prevent it flying into trees etc, and an altitude limiter to prevent it going out of R/C range.
    my suggested method here is to use a surplus tyre pressure gauge’s sensor Dremelled out of its housing and hooked up to a PIC12F683’s A-D, with simple coding and a light shield this should work fine.

    A slightly more expensive option is to use one of the resistive or capacitative altitude sensors, a source being recovered weather balloon transponders (aka Barocaps) or the sparkfun 12 bit resolution sensors.

    or you can kludge your own relatively easily, using nothing more than a small glass tube filled part way with galinstan alloy and an optical sensor to “trip” when it hits a desired altitude.

  2. This is like the ultimate claw game. Except the claw appears to be engineered to actually grip something.
    Also, one cool way to play fetch.
    I like the idea to use it for EOD.

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