  Aerial transportation requires a simple yet reliable gripper for picking and
placing objects of interest. In this work, we design an aerial gripper for
passive grasping and impulsive release of ferrous coated objects. Permanent
magnets are used for passive grasping and the Scotch Yoke mechanism is used for
providing impulsive force to drop the object. The load carrying capacity of the
gripper is calculated theoretically and experimentally. The parameters such as
the radius of the rotating disk and length of the slider in the Scotch Yoke
mechanism were optimized using weighted geometric programming. The dimensions
of the gripper mount were derived considering the various components of the
gripper. The gripper was mounted on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and the
tests were done by carrying ferrous coated cuboid shaped objects of different
sizes and masses. These tests were done in manual and autonomous mode in the
outdoor environment.
