Camber-adjustable flapping wing air vehicles

This paper introduces the implementation of adjustable camber of flapping wing and tail of a typical artificial flapping vehicle using a flexible piezoelectric actuator, called macro-fiber composites (MFC). When MFC is applied to the main wing of an ornithopter, the induced camber greatly affects aerodynamic characteristics such as mean lift and thrust. The tail wing actuation can be useful to reduce the pitching oscillation of an ornithopter.