flapping-wing robotic insects are small, highly maneuverable flying robots inspired by biologicalinsects and useful for a wide range of tasks, including exploration, environmental monitoring, searchand rescue, and surveillance. recently, robotic insects driven by piezoelectric actuators have achievedthe important goal of taking off with external power; however, fully autonomous operation requir...

The purpose of this research is to model and control a dragonflylike flapping wing micro aerial vehicle (FWMAV). It is well known that micro aerial vehicle (MAV) designs can be classified as fixed wing, rotary wing and flapping wing. Fixed wing MAV is capable of fast forward flight, which is suitable for flying outdoor. Rotary wing MAV is suitable for movement at low speed. Recently, flapping w...

Recently, flapping robots are noticed by many researchers, and many challenges are being made toward the realization of flight motions like insects, birds and so on. The purpose of this work is to develop flapping robots using a new type of piezoelectric material, that is, piezoelectric fiber composites. By using the composites, actuating fibers and sensing fibers can be embedded into a wing as...

The authors research and develop a flapping wing type robotic fish (shark ray robot) with flexible tail fin as an advanced underwater vehicle. The flapping wing consists of multijoints mechanism to get lift force and rotation moment for high maneuvering characteristics of motion. The tail fin is designed by elastic oscillating system and developed to produce strong propulsion force for higher s...

The stroke-cam flapping mechanism presented in this paper closely mimics the wing motion of a hovering Rufous hummingbird. It is the only lightweight hummingbird-sized flapping mechanism which generates a harmonic wing stroke with both a high flapping frequency and a large stroke amplitude. Experiments on a lightweight prototype of this stroke-cam mechanism on a 50 mm-long wing demonstrate that...

We demonstrate the first instance of a real on-line robot learning to develop feasible flying (flapping) behavior, using evolution. Here we present the experiments and results of the first use of evolutionary methods for a flying robot. With nature’s own method, evolution, we address the highly non-linear fluid dynamics of flying. The flying robot is constrained in a test bench where timing and...

Flying insects and robots that mimic them flap and rotate (or ‘pitch’) their wings with large angular amplitudes. The reciprocating nature of flapping requires rotation of the wing at the end of each stroke. Insects or flapping-wing robots could achieve this by directly exerting moments about the axis of rotation using auxiliary muscles or actuators. However, completely passive rotational dynam...

The power required by flapping and fixed wing vehicles in level flight is determined and compared. Based on a new modelling approach, the effects of flapping on the induced drag in flapping wing vehicles are mathematically described. It is shown that flapping causes a significant increase in the induced drag when compared with a non-flapping, fixed wing vehicle. There are two effects for that i...