CONTROL OF MICRO AIR VEHICLES USING WING MORPHING By HELEN MICHELLE GARCIA A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science CONTROL OF MICRO AIR VEHICLES USING WING MORPHING By Helen Michelle Garcia December 2003 Chair: Richard C. Lind, Jr. Major Department: Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering A micro air vehicle (MAV) is typically defined to have a wingspan of 6 in and operates with airspeeds of less than 25 mph. Recent attention has been devoted to MAVs because there is a variety of applications for which they can be used. Specifically, they are useful in missions within urban environments. These missions require MAVs to be very small and highly agile. These characteristics are achieved with the use of light materials such as carbon fiber airframes and plastic membrane wings; however, this design also causes these vehicles to be difficult to operate. This construction makes them strong with good aerodynamic properties; however, hinges for conventional control surfaces are not easily implemented on flexible wings. Therefore, these vehicles are strong and light but have limited control authority. A different control effector is then necessary in order to provide control authority. This thesis will consider using wing morphing as a control effector. Simple techniques are used to change the shape of the wings during flight such as twisting the wings of a 24 in MAV and curling the wings of a 12 in MAV. Flight tests are then performed and show that morphing is an effective way to induce roll motion. The data are then analyzed to consider linear modeling techniques as well as control design. The use of morphing