Many research studies have investigated the characteristics of bird flights as a source bioinspiration for design flapping-wing micro air vehicles. However, to best authors’ knowledge, no drone targeted exploitation aerodynamic benefits associated with avian group formation flight. Therefore, in this work, conceptual novel multi-flapping-wing that incorporates multiple pairs wings arranged V-sh...

Plunging airfoils are investigated for applications such as Micro-Air Vehicles (MAVs) and bird and fish like propulsion. Plunging or flapping wings can provide more propulsive efficiency than that of fixed wings, especially at small to moderate Reynolds numbers, where the MAVs (due to their small size) operate. Furthermore, it has been observed that birds and insects rely on detaching and separ...

In nature, insects with their forewings and hindwings undergoing small-gap flapping motion experience strong aerodynamic interaction. Conventional studies mainly focus on the propulsion performance of tandem wings, while interaction between a wing fixed in configuration at low Reynolds numbers ( Re) is unclear. this paper, we numerically studied vortex structure flapping–fixed airfoil configura...

The longitudinal aerodynamics of micro aerial vehicles, although not fully understood, have been the subject of several studies in recent years; however, littleworkhasbeendone to investigate the lateral loading. In this experiment, flat-plate wings with rectangular planforms of aspect ratios AR 0.75, 1, 1.5, and 3 and tapered planforms of λ 0.75, 0.5, and 0.25 were placed in the wind tunnel at ...

1 General Introduction A Flapping Micro Air Vehicle (FMAV) is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are usually built on the same scale as these flying creatures. Basic open-loop flight control is possible through a radio frequency remote controller with joystick [1]. ...

Micro-aerial vehicles (MAV) and their promising applications – such as undetected surveillance or exploration of environments with little space for land-based maneuvers – are a well-known topic in the field of aerial robotics. Inspired by high maneuverability and agile flight of insects, over the past two decades a significant amount of effort has been dedicated to research on flapping-wing MAV...

A flight-dynamics oriented simulation model of a flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) has been developed. This concept is based on flapping flight performed in nature by insects or hummingbirds. An optimization of the flapping kinematics of the wing has been led, in order to maximize the mean lift and thus the payload. A neural network has been designed to reproduce the function shape of the w...

Analysis and Control of Flapping Flight: from Biological to Robotic Insects2 by Luca Schenato Doctor of Philosophy in Engineering Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California at Berkeley Professor Shankar S. Sastry, Chair This dissertation explores flapping flight as an effective form of locomotion for unmanned micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). Flapping flight is analyzed f...