Researchers at Yale's Grab Lab aren't about to let the nuances of rotary-wing flight restrict what unmanned aerial vehicles can do. A team there has developed a hand-like modular grasping and manipulation platform that can be fitted to the bellies of UAVs to provide them with extra functionality without overly taxing their flight capabilities. Aerial vehicles that could pick up and carry objects for their human handlers are generally of the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), which means they are generally small rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters). To circumvent these issues, Grab Lab engineers created their manipulator with a single motor that controls all four "fingers" simultaneously.