30th Florida Conference on Recent Advances in Robotics, May 11-12, 2017, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida Design of a Drone with a Robotic End-Effector Suhas Varadaramanujan, Sawan Sreenivasa, Praveen Pasupathy, Sukeerth Calastawad, Melissa Morris, Sabri Tosunoglu Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering Florida International University Miami, Florida 33174 svara008@fiu.edu, ssree005@fiu.edu , ppasu001@fiu.edu, scala007@fiu.edu, mmorr009@fiu.edu, tosun@fiu.edu ABSTRACT The concept presented involves a combination of a quadcopter drone and an end-effector arm, which is designed with the capability of lifting and picking fruits from an elevated position. The inspiration for this concept was obtained from the swarm robots which have an effector arm to pick small cubes, cans to even collecting experimental samples as in case of space exploration. The system as per preliminary analysis would contain two physically separate components, but linked with a common algorithm which includes controlling of the drone’s positions along with the movement of the arm. Keywords Drone, end effector, autonomous, payload. 1. INTRODUCTION A robot is a machine that is programmable and capable of carrying out a series of complex actions automatically. Robots can be guided by an external control device or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be constructed to take on a human form, but most robots are machines designed to perform a task with little regard to how they look. Robots can be autonomous or semi- autonomous such as Honda’s Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility, also known as ASIMO, and TOSY’s Ping Pong Playing Robot (TOPIO) which are marvels in the field of robotics. In addition to this there is considerable progress seen in area of industrial robots, medical robots, patent assisting robots, human rehabilitation, athletic training robots, and a whole set of more applications. In addition to land-based robots there is also developments in the bots used for aerospace and marine applications. By mimicking a lifelike appearance or automating movements, a robot may convey a sense of intelligence or thought of its own. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) which include a UAV, a ground-based controller, and a system of communications between the two. The flight of UAVs may operate with various degrees of autonomy either under remote control by a human operator, or fully or intermittently autonomously by on-board computers. For example, the widely-used predator drone for military purposes is the MQ-1 by General Atomics which is remote controlled, UAVs typically fall into one of six functional categories (i.e. target and decoy, reconnaissance, combat, logistics, R&D, civil and commercial). With the advent of aerial robotics technology, UAVs became more sophisticated and led to development of quadcopters which gained popularity as mini-helicopters. A quadcopter, also known as a quadrotor helicopter, is lifted by means of four rotors. In operation, the quadcopters generally use two pairs of identical fixed pitched propellers; two clockwise (CW) and two counterclockwise (CCW). They use independent variation of the speed of each rotor to achieve control. By varying the speed of each rotor, it is possible to specifically generate a desired total thrust, to locate for the center of thrust both laterally and longitudinally, and to create a desire total torque or turning force. In addition to this development, quadcopters were designed to adopt an end effector. In robotics, an end effector is the device at the end of a robotic arm designed to interact with the environment. The exact nature of this device depends on the application of the robot. In the strictest definition, which originates from serial robotic manipulators, the end effector is the last link (end) of the robot. At this endpoint, the tools are attached. In a wider sense, an end effector is the part of a robot that interacts with the work environment. This does not refer to the wheels of a mobile robot nor the feet of a humanoid robot which are not end-effectors because they are part of the robot's mobility. End effectors may consist of a gripper or a tool. When referring to robotic end-effectors, there are four broad categories of robot grippers. These are (a) Impactive – jaws or claws which physically grasp by direct impact upon the object, (b) Ingressive – pins, needles or hackles which physically penetrate the surface of the object (used in textile, carbon and glass fiber handling), (c) Astrictive – suction forces applied to the objects surface (whether by vacuum, magneto- or electro adhesion) and (d) Contigutive – requiring direct contact for adhesion to take place (such as glue, surface tension or freezing) [10].