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Flapping Aerial Vehicles
Aerial platforms based on a flapping wing design
Goal: Design and manufacture an autonomous aerial vehicle capable of sustained flapping flight. Targeted weight and wingspan of the robot are ~1 g and 7-10 cm respectively. The platform is intended to be used for developing and testing control laws for the vehicle's position and orientation in space.
Approach: Small scale flapping wing air vehicles present a large leap forward in agility, maneuverability and aerial acrobatic potential from their fixed and rotary wing counterparts. Inspiration and basic concepts of flapping flight originated from studying the kinematics of nature's hummingbirds, butterflies, and flies.
Our flapping wing design is based on completely passive wing pitch reversal. Missing any mechanical stops, the motion of this system is governed only by the dynamics of the wing, aerodynamic forces and torsional spring/damper torques at the wing's rotation axis.
Advangates: Attempting to build an aerial vehicle on a 1 g size scale somewhat simplifies the manufacturing process. Furthermore, the proposed passive wing rotation design benefits from natural stability, mechanical simplicity, low controller bandwidth, and could potentially be realizable on a shorter time scale for specific applications. A working prototype will be utilized as a platform for testing controllability at that scale.
Current Status: A numerical detailed simulation of the passive pitch reversal wing dynamics has been developed. The model also features actuator dynamics and transmission kinematics to closer approximate reality, geared to be used as an optimization and design tool for the flight mechanism. Experimental testing of the single wing setup have been completed and match the simulation predictions fairly closely in producing 2.5 mN of lift at 90 Hz beat frequency. We are currently deeply engaged in expanding the single wing passive rotation wing design to a dual wing robotic prototype, with the ultimate goal of the project being the development of control strategies for such a platform.
Members:
Slava Arabagi,
Lindsey Hines,
Metin Sitti
Former Members:
Robert Smith,
Man Seong Kim,
Papers:
V. Arabagi, L. Hines, R. Smith, M. Sitti, "Simulation and Experiment of a Passive Pitch Reversal Flapping Wing Mechanism," submitted for review, 2009.
V. Arabagi, M. Sitti, "Simulation and Analysis of a Passive pitch reversal flapping wing mechanism," IROS Conference, Nice, France, Sept 2008.
V. Arabagi, M. Sitti, "Simulation and Analysis of a Passive Pitch Reversal Flapping Wing Mechanism for an Aerial Robotic Platform," AMAM Conference, Cleveland, OH, May 2008.
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| | [Passive pitch reversal flapping wing schematic] |
| [Experimental single wing test setup used for system characterization (measuring lift force, wing rotation trajectory, etc)]
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| [One possible envisioned final design of the flapping aerial robot]
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