Research on variable camber wing driven by ultrasonic motors

Taking the Advantages of ultrasonic motors such as high torque, small size, light weight, self-lock and rapid response, a kind of variable camber wing driven by ultrasonic motors is designed in this paper. The morphing wing is suitable for small UAV of low Mach number because it is able to obtain a good aerodynamic efficiency. Parallelogram linkage driven by ultrasonic motor is designed and applied to the variable camber wing to drive the trailing edge. Distributed layout of the mechanism is adopted and continuous deformations can be produced, so various aerodynamic profiles suitable for different flying states can be obtained. The motors are arranged independently in the wing panel, and individually drive the wing sections to morph separately. The whole morphing mechanism is placed in the interior of the wing and the wing surface is covered with smooth flexible skin in order to decrease the aerodynamic drag.