This thesis presents a method for designing a flapping wing stroke for a flapping wing vehicle. A flapping wing vehicle is a vehicle such as a bird or an insect that uses its wings for propulsion instead of a conventional propeller or a jet engine. The intent of this research is to design a wing stroke that the wings can follow which will maintain the vehicle at a desired longitudinal flight path angle and velocity. The cost function is primarily a function of the flight path angle error, velocity error and control rate. The objective maneuver is to achieve a flight condition similar to the trim of a conventional fixed wing aircraft. Gliding configurations of the vehicle are analyzed to better understand flight in minimal energy configurations as well as the modes of the vehicle. A control law is also designed using Lyapunov’s direct method that achieves stable tracking of the wing stroke. Results are presented that demonstrate the ability of the method to design wing strokes that can maintain the vehicle at various flight path angles and velocities. The results of this research show that an optimal control problem can be posed such that the solution of the problem results in a wing stroke that a flapping wing vehicle can use to achieve a desired maneuver. The vehicle velocity is shown to be stable in controlled gliding flight and flapping flight.

Flapping wing propulsion has the potential to revolutionise the field of Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs), but little is known about the effect of flapping motion on the performance of flapping wings. Prototype MAVs have achieved flight with passive flapping wings moving in a sinusoidal flapping motion, but the possible benefits of alternative flapping motions have not been studied in detail. This thesis presents the development of an Integrated Testing System (ITS), which allows the evaluation of flapping wing performance for different flapping motions. A detailed parametric study of the effect of flapping motion on wing performance is performed, and the optimal flapping motion for several passive flapping wings is determined by hardware-in-the-loop optimisation of two wing performance metrics. The developed ITS was able to automatically test a variety of passive flapping wings, and demonstrated precise control of the flapping motion and accurate and repeatable measurements of average lift force, mechanical power, and wing twist angle. The parametric study revealed that of the three flapping motions tested, the sinusoidal flapping motion generated the highest lift force, but a smoothed triangular motion was able to generate lift significantly more efficiently under load. The optimal flapping motion was successfully determined for three flapping wings, and was found to increase the loaded effciency of the wings by an average of 31% over a sinusoidal flapping motion. The determined optimal motion was almost identical for the three tested wings, and was found to strongly resemble the flapping motion of insects These findings demonstrate that significant improvements in the performance of passive flapping wings can be achieved by relatively minor variations of the flapping motion. This increased understanding will ideally lead to more efficient flapping wing MAVs with higher payloads, longer flight times, and improved performance.

In this study a mechanism which produced flapping and pitching motions was designed and fabricated. These motions were produced by using a single electric motor and by exploiting flexible structures. The aerodynamic forces generated by flexible membrane wings were measured using a two degree of freedom force balance. This force balance measured the aerodynamic forces of lift and thrust. Two sets of wings with varying flexibility were made. Lift and thrust measurements were acquired as the mechanism flapped the wings in a total of thirteen cases. These thirteen cases consisted of zero velocity free stream conditions as well as forward flight conditions of five meters per second. In addition, flapping frequency was varied from two Hertz to four Hertz, while angle of attack offsets varied from zero degrees to fifteen degrees. The four most interesting conditions for both sets of wings were explored in more detail. For each of these conditions, high-speed video of the flapping wing was taken. The images from the video were also correlated with cycle averaged aerodynamic forces produced by the mechanism. Several observations were made regarding the behavior of flexible flapping wings that should aid in the design of future flexible flapping wing vehicles.

none

Numerical models of insect flapping flight have previously been developed and used to simulate the performance of insect flight. These models were commonly developed via Blade Element Theory, offering efficient computation, thus allowing them to be coupled with optimisation procedures for predicting optimal flight. However, the models have only been used for simulating hover flight, and often neglect the presence of the induced flow effect. Although some models account for the induced flow effect, the rapid changes of this effect on each local wing element have not been modelled. Crucially, this effect appears in both axial and radial directions, which influences the direction and magnitude of the incoming air, and hence the resulting aerodynamic forces. This thesis describes the development of flapping wing models aimed at advancing theoretical tools for simulating the optimum performance of insect flight. Two models are presented: single and tandem wing configurations for hawk moth and dragonfly, respectively. These models are designed by integrating a numerical design procedure to account for the induced flow effects. This approach facilitates the determination of the instantaneous relative velocity at any given spanwise location on the wing, following the changes of the axial and radial induced flow effects on the wing. For the dragonfly, both wings are coupled to account for the interaction of the flow, particularly the fact that the hindwing operates in the slipstream of the forewing. A heuristic optimisation procedure (particle swarming) is used to optimise the stroke or the wing kinematics at all flight conditions (hover, level, and accelerating flight). The cost function is the propulsive efficiency coupled with constraints for flight stability. The vector of the kinematic variables consists of up to 28 independent parameters (14 per wing for a dragonfly), each with a constrained range derived from the maximum available power, the flight muscle ratio, and the kinematics of real insects; this will prevent physically-unrealistic solutions of the wing motion. The model developed in this thesis accounts for the induced flow, and eliminates the dependency on the empirical translation lift coefficient. Validations are shown with numerical simulations for the hover case, and with experimental results for the forward flight case. From the results obtained, the effect of the induced velocity is found to be greatest in the middle of the stroke. The use of an optimisation process is shown to greatly improve the flapping kinematics, resulting in low power consumption in all flight conditions. In addition, a study on dragonfly flight has shown that the maximum acceleration is dependent on the size of the flight muscle.

Flying insects display remarkable maneuverability. Unlike typical airplanes, these insects are able to execute an evasive action, rapidly change their flight speed and direction, or leisurely land on flowers buffeted by wind, exhibiting aerodynamic feats unmatched by any state-of-the-art aircraft. By subtly tuning their wing motions, they generate and manipulate unsteady aerodynamic phenomenon that is the basis of their extraordinary maneuverability. Inspired by these tiny animals, scientists and engineers have pushed the boundaries of technology in many aspects, including meso-scale fabrication, electronics, and artificial intelligence, to develop autonomous millimeter-scale flapping-wing robots. In this thesis, we demonstrate, on real insect-scale robots, that using only an approximate model of the aerodynamics and flight dynamics in combination with conventional tools in nonlinear control, the inherently unstable flapping-wing robot can achieve steady hover. We present the development of flight controllers that gradually enhance the flight precision, allowing the robot to realize increasingly aggressive trajectories, including a highly acrobatic maneuver---perching on a vertical surface, as observed in its natural counterparts. We also demonstrate that these experiments lead to higher fidelity of in-flight aerodynamic models, strengthening our understanding of the dynamics of the robot and real insects. / Engineering and Applied Sciences

Flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) is an emerging micro-robotic technology, which has several challenges toward its practical implementation. Inspired by insect flight, researchers have adopted bio-mimicking approach to accomplish its engineering model. There are several methods to synthesize such an electromechanical system. A piezoelectric actuator driven flapping mechanism, being voltage controlled, monolithic, and of solid state type exhibits greater potential than any conventional motor driven flapping wing mechanism at small scale. However, the demand for large tip deflection with constrained mass introduces several challenges in the design of such piezoelectric actuators for this application. The mass constraint restricts the geometry, but applying high electric field we can increase the tip deflection in a piezoelectric actuator. Here we have investigated performance of rectangular piezo-actuator at high electric field. The performance measuring attributes such as, the tip deflection, block force, block moment, block load, output strain energy, output energy density, input electrical energy, and energy efficiency are analytically calculated for the actuator at high electric field. The analytical results suggest that the performance of such an actuator can be improved by tailoring the geometry while keeping the mass and capacitance constant. Thereby, a tapered piezoelectric bimorph cantilever actuator can provide better electromechanical performance for out-of-plane deflection, compared to a rectangular piezoelectric bimorph of equal mass and capacitance. The constant capacitance provides facility to keep the electronic signal bandwidth unchanged. We have analytically presented improvement in block force and its corresponding output strain energy, energy density and energy effi- ciency with tapered geometry. We have quantitatively and comparatively shown the per- formance improvement. Then, we have considered a rigid extension of non-piezoelectric material at the tip of the piezo-actuator to increase the tip deflection. We have an- alytically investigated the effect of thick and thin rigid extension of non-piezoelectric material on the performance of this piezo-actuator. The formulation provides scope for multi-objective optimization for the actuator subjected to mechanical and electrical con- straints, and leads to the findings of some useful pareto optimal solutions. Piezoelectric materials are polarized in a certain direction. Driving a piezoelectric actuator by high electric field in a direction opposite to the polarized direction can destroy the piezo- electric property. Therefore, unipolar high electric field is recommended to drive such actuators. We have discussed the drawbacks of existing switching amplifier based piezo- electric drivers for flapping wing MAV application, and have suggested an active filter based voltage driver to operate a piezoelectric actuator in such cases. The active filter is designed to have a low pass bandwidth, and use Chebyshev polynomial to produce unipolar high voltage of low flapping frequency. Adjustment of flapping frequency by this voltage driver is compatible with radio control communication. To accomplish the flapping-wing mechanism, we have addressed a compatible dis- tributed compliant mechanism, which acts like a transmission between the flapping wing of a micro air vehicle and the laminated piezoelectric actuator, discussed above. The mechanism takes translational deflection at its input from the piezoelectric actuator and provides angular deflection at its output, which causes flapping. The feasibility of the mechanism is investigated by using spring-lever (SL) model. A basic design of the com- pliant mechanism is obtained by topology optimization, and the final mechanism is pro- totyped using VeroWhitePlus RGD835 material with an Objet Connex 3D printer. We made a bench-top experimental setup and demonstrated the flapping motion by actuating the distributed compliant mechanism with a piezoelectric bimorph actuator.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The geometric characteristics of flapping-wing propulsion are studied experimentally through the use of a force balance and a Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) system. The system used is built to duplicate the propulsion system currently on the flying model of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) MAV model. Experiments are carried out in a low speed wind tunnel to determine the effects of mean separation and plunge amplitude on the flapping wing propulsion system. Additionally, the effects of flapping-wing shape, flapping frequency, and MAV angle of attack (AOA) are also investigated. Some flow visualization is also performed. The intent is to optimize the system so that payload and controllability improvements can be made to the NPS MAV. / Ensign, United States Naval Reserve

No description available.

Small scale unmanned aircraft, such as quadrotors, that are quickly emerging as versatile tools for a wide range of applications including search and rescue, hazardous environment exploration, or just shooting great video, are known as micro air vehicles (MAVs). However, for millimeter scale vehicles with weights under 10 grams, conventional flight technologies become greatly inefficient and instead inspiration is drawn from biology. Flapping wing MAVs (FWMAVs) have been created based on insects and hummingbirds in an effort to emulate their extreme agility and ability to hover in place. FWMAVs possess unique capabilities in terms of maneuverability, small size, and ability to operate in dynamic environments that make them particularly well suited for environmental monitoring and swarm applications such as artificial crop pollination. Despite their advantages, significant challenges in fabrication, power, and control must be overcome in order to make FWMAVs a reliable platform. Current designs suffer from high mechanical complexity and often rely on off-board power, sensing, and control, which compromises their autonomy and limits practical applications. The goal of my research is to develop a simple FWMAV design that provides high efficiency and controllability. An efficient, simple, and controllable vehicle design is developed utilizing the principles of resonance, emulation of biological flight control, and under-actuation. A highly efficient, resonant actuator is achieved by attaching a spring in parallel to the output shaft of a commercial geared DC micro-motor. This actuator directly drives the wings of the vehicle, allowing them to be controlled precisely and independently. This direct control strategy emulates biology and differs from other FWMAV designs that utilize complicated transmissions to generate flapping from rotary motor output. Direct control of the wings allows for emulation of biological wing kinematics, resulting in control based on wing motion alone. Furthermore, under-actuation is employed to mimic the rotational motion of insect wings. A rotational joint is added between the motor and wing membrane such that the wing rotates passively in response to aerodynamic forces that are generated as the wing is driven. This design is realized in several stages, initial prototyping, simulation and development of the actuator and wings, then finally a control system is developed. First the system was modeled and improved experimentally in order to achieve lift off. Improvements to the actuator were realized through component variation and custom fabrication increasing torque and power density by 161.1% and 666.8% respectively compared to the gearmotor alone and increased the resonant operating frequency of the vehicle from 4 Hz to 23 Hz. Advances in wing fabrication allowed for flexible wings that increased translational lift production by 35.3%, aerodynamic efficiency by 41.3%, and the effective lift coefficient by 63.7% with dynamic twisting. A robust control architecture was then developed iteratively based on a date driven system model in order to increase flight time from 1 second (10 wing strokes) to over 10 seconds (230 wing strokes). The resulting design improves lift to weight by 166%, allowing for a payload capacity of approximately 8.7 g and offers the potential for fully autonomous operation with all necessary components included on-board. A thermal model for micro-motors was developed and tuned to accurately predict an upper limit of system operation of 41 seconds as well as to optimize a heatsink that increases operating time by 102.4%.