This paper presents an analysis of the concept of Miniature Air Vehicles and Micro Air Vehicles (respectively mAV and μAV) mainly carried out through the development of a mAV prototype called "Bidule", which was first successfully flown in 1998. The final objective of the project is to reduce the size of this miniature demonstrator to a micro sized vehicle. This paper presents the initial work ...

Recently, the Aerospace community has focused much of its effort on the development of micro-air vehicle technology. The treatment of problems at the micro-scale and nano-scale levels has traditionally been difficult, and one of the most challenging aspects of the design of these aircraft is the development of compact propulsion systems for them. Here, the pulse detonation engine is proposed as...

Employing a swarm of independently controlled flying micro air vehicles (MAVs) for aerial coverage missions, instead of a single flying robot, increases the robustness and efficiency of the missions. Designing a swarm of MAVs requires addressing new challenges, such as inter-robot collision avoidance and formation control, where individual’s knowledge about the relative location of their local ...

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 per...

Employing a group of independently controlled flying micro air vehicles (MAVs) for aerial coverage missions, instead of a single flying robot, increases the robustness and efficiency of the missions. Designing a group of MAVs requires addressing new challenges, such as inter-robot collision avoidance and formation control, where individual’s knowledge about the relative location of their local ...

Autonomous in-flight air refueling is an important capability for the future deployment of unmanned air vehicles, since they will likely be ferried in flight to overseas theaters of operation instead of being shipped unassembled in containers. This paper introduces a vision sensor based on active deformable contour algorithms, and a relative navigation system that enables precise and reliable b...