Artificial insect wings of diverse morphology for flapping-wing micro air vehicles

The development of flapping-wing micro air vehicles (MAVs) demands a systematic exploration of the available design space to identify ways in which the unsteady mechanisms governing flapping-wing flight can best be utilized for producing optimal thrust or maneuverability. Mimicking the wing kinematics of biological flight requires examining the potential effects of wing morphology on flight performance, as wings may be specially adapted for flapping flight. For example, insect wings passively deform during flight, leading to instantaneous and potentially unpredictable changes in aerodynamic behavior. Previous studies have postulated various explanations for insect wing complexity, but there lacks a systematic approach for experimentally examining the functional significance of components of wing morphology, and for determining whether or not natural design principles can or should be used for MAVs. In this work, a novel fabrication process to create centimeter-scale wings of great complexity is introduced; via this process, a wing can be fabricated with a large range of desired mechanical and geometric characteristics. We demonstrate the versatility of the process through the creation of planar, insect-like wings with biomimetic venation patterns that approximate the mechanical properties of their natural counterparts under static loads. This process will provide a platform for studies investigating the effects of wing morphology on flight dynamics, which may lead to the design of highly maneuverable and efficient MAVs and insight into the functional morphology of natural wings.Organismic and Evolutionary Biolog

Progress on ‘pico’ air vehicles

As the characteristic size of a flying robot decreases, the challenges for successful flight revert to basic questions of fabrication, actuation, fluid mechanics, stabilization, and power, whereas such questions have in general been answered for larger aircraft. When developing a flying robot on the scale of a common housefly, all hardware must be developed from scratch as there is nothing ‘off-the-shelf’ which can be used for mechanisms, sensors, or computation that would satisfy the extreme mass and power limitations. This technology void also applies to techniques available for fabrication and assembly of the aeromechanical components: the scale and complexity of the mechanical features requires new ways to design and prototype at scales between macro and microeletromechanical systems, but with rich topologies and material choices one would expect when designing human-scale vehicles. With these challenges in mind, we present progress in the essential technologies for insect-scale robots, or ‘pico’ air vehicles. </jats:p

Toward Flapping Wing Control of Micro Air Vehicles

Published online 28 August 2012.Research into insect-sized flapping wing micro air vehicles has exploded over the last decade, yet most of this work has focused on simply achieving flight, while leaving the issue of how to control it to future researchers. Here, previous work in the field of flapping wing control is summarized and each proposed technique is evaluated according to how many body forces and moments it can directly influence on the micro air vehicle and how complicated a wing flapping mechanism is needed to implement it. Though some promising techniques have been proposed, none satisfactorily address all of the design criteria; therefore, a new technique is proposed, biharmonic amplitude and bias modulation. This technique is analyzed with quasi-steady blade-element techniques and shown to provide direct influence over five micro air vehicle body forces and moments in hover while requiring only two actuators. Furthermore, it is applicable to a wing flapping mechanism operating at its resonant frequency, which reduces the energetic cost of control for the micro air vehicle