Micro air vehicles, or MAVs, are of current interest for a multitude of uses to which they, being small, unmanned vehicles, are uniquely suited. Among the proposed uses are exploration, reconnaissance, and communications. They can be deployed inside buildings, where their small size, hovering capability, and maneuverability, are important factors. Due to their small size, they operate at low Reynolds numbers where conventional flying mechanisms are not advantageous. Thus, attempts have been made to learn from natural flyers like insects and birds. Natural flight is accomplished by flapping wings, and this idea has been proposed for certain types of MAVs termed ornithopters and entomopters. This dissertation investigates the aerodynamics applicable to low Reynolds number unsteady flow, and consists of four stages. The first stage is CFD for fixed wings at low Reynolds number. In the second and third stage, experiments are conducted on flapping and plunging wings. The final stage consists of dynamic mesh CFD for a plunging airfoil --Abstract, page iii
