Flexible membrane wing warping using tendon-sheath mechanism

Flexible membrane wings have many advantages, but has very little roll control authority. In this paper, the flexible membrane wing is actuated using a tendon-sheath mechanism to achieve roll control and also allowing the wing to fold. The characteristics of the flexible wing, as well as the wing warping actuation approach is discussed in this paper. The experimental setup and results are shown. The characteristics of the tendon-sheath is shown to be suitable for flexible wing actuation. A simple nonlinear curve fitting model is also presented.