Energetics-based design of small flapping-wing micro air vehicles

Author

Madangopal, Rajkiran ; Khan, Zaeem Ashraf ; Agrawal, Sunil K.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mech. Eng., Delaware Univ., Newark, DE

Volume

11

Issue

4

fYear

2006

Firstpage

433

Lastpage

438

Abstract

In this paper, the energetics of a flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) is analyzed with the objective of designing it. The salient features of this paper are as follows: 1) designing an energy storage mechanism in the air vehicle similar to an insect thorax that stores part of the kinetic energy of the wing as elastic potential energy during a flapping cycle; 2) inclusion of simplified aerodynamic wing models and inertia of the mechanism using rigid-body modeling techniques; 3) optimization of parameters of the energy storage mechanism using the dynamic models, so that energy input from the external actuators is minimized during a flapping cycle. A series of engineering prototypes based on these studies have been planned which will justify the use of these mathematical techniques

Keywords

aerodynamics; aerospace robotics; microrobots; robot dynamics; aerodynamic wing models; energetics-based design; flapping cycle; flapping-wing microair vehicles; insect thorax; rigid-body modeling techniques; Actuators; Aerodynamics; Design engineering; Design optimization; Energy storage; Insects; Kinetic energy; Potential energy; Thorax; Vehicle dynamics; Design; energetics; flapping wing machines; micro air vehicles;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Mechatronics, IEEE/ASME Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1083-4435

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TMECH.2006.878525

Filename

1677575