Download or read book Design and Analysis of a Flapping Wing Mechanism for Optimization written by Ryan Brandon George and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Furthering our understanding of the physics of flapping flight has the potential to benefit the field of micro air vehicles. Advancements in micro air vehicles can benefit applications such as surveillance, reconnaissance, and search and rescue. In this research, flapping kinematics of a ladybug was explored using a direct linear transformation. A flapping mechanism design is presented that was capable of executing ladybug or other species-specific kinematics. The mechanism was based on a differential gear design, had two wings, and could flap in harsh environments. This mechanism served as a test bed for force analysis and optimization studies. The first study was based on a Box-Behnken screening design to explore wing kinematic parameter design space and manually search in the direction of flapping kinematics that optimized the objective of maximum combined lift and thrust. The second study used a Box-Behnken screening design to build a response surface. Using gradient-based techniques, this surface was optimized for maximum combined lift and thrust. Box-Behnken design coupled with response surface methodology was an efficient method for exploring the mechanism force response. Both methods for optimization were capable of successfully improving lift and thrust force outputs. The incorporation of the results of these studies will aid in the design of more efficient micro air vehicles and with the ultimate goal of leading to a better understanding of flapping wing aerodynamics and the development of aerodynamic models.

Download or read book Experimental Characterization Design Analysis and Optimization of Flexible Flapping Wings for Micro Air Vehicles written by Pin Wu and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABSTRACT:This work has advanced the understanding of flapping flight of flexible wings designed to be used in micro air vehicles. A complete new experimental setup that includes a wing actuation mechanism, a customized digital image correlation system, a control system, a load sensor and a vacuum chamber is realized for this study. The technique of digital image correlation has also been developed so that complicated wing kinematics and deformation can be measured. The flapping wing effectiveness and efficiency have been evaluated in different conditions. The results indicate that passive wing deformation can be utilized to enhance aerodynamic performance, under certain inertial loading mainly dictated by flapping frequency, amplitude, wing compliance and mass distribution. The wing deformation reflects the aeroelastic effect produced by the coupled aerodynamic loading as well as the inertial loading. Critical parameters extracted from the deformation data are used to characterize the structural properties of the wings and correlate with the aerodynamic performance. The correlation shows that for one-degree-of-freedom kinematics, wing deformation can be directly used to predict time averaged thrust. The intrinsic relationship between kinematics and inertial loading enables the design and optimization of wing structure based on the correlation results.

Download or read book The DelFly written by G.C.H.E. de Croon and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces the topics most relevant to autonomously flying flapping wing robots: flapping-wing design, aerodynamics, and artificial intelligence. Readers can explore these topics in the context of the "Delfly", a flapping wing robot designed at Delft University in The Netherlands. How are tiny fruit flies able to lift their weight, avoid obstacles and predators, and find food or shelter? The first step in emulating this is the creation of a micro flapping wing robot that flies by itself. The challenges are considerable: the design and aerodynamics of flapping wings are still active areas of scientific research, whilst artificial intelligence is subject to extreme limitations deriving from the few sensors and minimal processing onboard. This book conveys the essential insights that lie behind success such as the DelFly Micro and the DelFly Explorer. The DelFly Micro, with its 3.07 grams and 10 cm wing span, is still the smallest flapping wing MAV in the world carrying a camera, whilst the DelFly Explorer is the world's first flapping wing MAV that is able to fly completely autonomously in unknown environments. The DelFly project started in 2005 and ever since has served as inspiration, not only to many scientific flapping wing studies, but also the design of flapping wing toys. The combination of introductions to relevant fields, practical insights and scientific experiments from the DelFly project make this book a must-read for all flapping wing enthusiasts, be they students, researchers, or engineers.

Download or read book Force Optimization and Flow Field Characterization from a Flapping Wing Mechanism written by Nathaniel Stephen Naegle and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flapping flight shows promise for micro air vehicle design because flapping wings provide superior aerodynamic performance than that of fixed wings and rotors at low Reynolds numbers. In these flight regimes, unsteady effects become increasingly important. This thesis explores some of the unsteady effects that provide additional lift to flapping wings through an experiment-based optimization of the kinematics of a flapping wing mechanism in a water tunnel. The mechanism wings and flow environment were scaled to simulate the flight of the hawkmoth (Manduca sexta) at hovering or near-hovering speeds. The optimization was repeated using rigid and flexible wings to evaluate the impact that wing flexibility has on aerodynamic performance of flapping wings. The trajectories that produced the highest lift were compared using particle image velocimetry to characterize the flow features produced during the periods of peak lift. A leading edge vortex was observed with all of the flapping trajectories and both wing types, the strength of which corresponded to the measured amount of lift of the wing. This research furthers our understanding of the lift-generating mechanisms used in nature and can be applied to improve the design of micro air vehicles.

Download or read book Flapping Wing Vehicles written by Lung-Jieh Yang and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flapping wing vehicles (FWVs) have unique flight characteristics and the successful flight of such a vehicle depends upon efficient design of the flapping mechanisms while keeping the minimum weight of the structure. Flapping Wing Vehicles: Numerical and Experimental Approach discusses design and kinematic analysis of various flapping wing mechanisms, measurement of flap angle/flapping frequency, and computational fluid dynamic analysis of motion characteristics including manufacturing techniques. The book also includes wind tunnel experiments, high-speed photographic analysis of aerodynamic performance, soap film visualization of 3D down washing, studies on the effect of wing rotation, figure-of-eight motion characteristics, and more. Features Covers all aspects of FWVs needed to design one and understand how and why it flies Explains related engineering practices including flapping mechanism design, kinematic analysis, materials, manufacturing, and aerodynamic performance measures using wind tunnel experiments Includes CFD analysis of 3D wing profile, formation flight of FWVs, and soap film visualization of flapping wings Discusses dynamics and image-based control of a group of ornithopters Explores indigenous PCB design for achieving altitude and attitude control This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in mechatronics, materials, aerodynamics, robotics, biomimetics, vehicle design and MAV/UAV.

Download or read book Flapping Wing Vehicles written by Lung-Jieh Yang and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Flapping wing vehicles (FWVs) have unique flight characteristics and the successful flight of such a vehicle depends upon efficient design of the flapping mechanisms while keeping the minimum weight of the structure. Flapping Wing Vehicles: Numerical and Experimental Approach discusses design and kinematic analysis of various flapping wing mechanisms, measurement of flap angle/flapping frequency, and computational fluid dynamic analysis of motion characteristics including manufacturing techniques. The book also includes wind tunnel experiments, high-speed photographic analysis of aerodynamic performance, soap film visualization of 3D down washing, studies on the effect of wing rotation, figure-of-eight motion characteristics, and more. Features: Covers all aspects of FWVs needed to design one and understand how and why it flies; Explains related engineering practices including flapping mechanism design, kinematic analysis, materials, manufacturing, and aerodynamic performance measures using wind tunnel experiments; Includes CFD analysis of 3D wing profile, formation flight of FWVs, and soap film visualization of flapping wings; Discusses dynamics and image-based control of a group of ornithopters; Explores indigenous PCB design for achieving altitude and attitude control This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students in mechatronics, materials, aerodynamics, robotics, biomimetics, vehicle design and MAV/UAV."--

Download or read book An Introduction to Flapping Wing Aerodynamics written by Wei Shyy and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-19 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an ideal book for graduate students and researchers interested in the aerodynamics, structural dynamics and flight dynamics of small birds, bats and insects, as well as of micro air vehicles (MAVs), which present some of the richest problems intersecting science and engineering. The agility and spectacular flight performance of natural flyers, thanks to their flexible, deformable wing structures, as well as to outstanding wing, tail and body coordination, is particularly significant. To design and build MAVs with performance comparable to natural flyers, it is essential that natural flyers' combined flexible structural dynamics and aerodynamics are adequately understood. The primary focus of this book is to address the recent developments in flapping wing aerodynamics. This book extends the work presented in Aerodynamics of Low Reynolds Number Flyers (Shyy et al. 2008).

Download or read book Fixed and Flapping Wing Aerodynamics for Micro Air Vehicle Applications written by Thomas J. Mueller and published by AIAA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title reports on the latest research in the area of aerodynamic efficency of various fixed-wing, flapping wing, and rotary wing concepts. It presents the progress made by over fifty active researchers in the field.

Download or read book Mechanism and Machine Science written by Dibakar Sen and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents select papers from the Asian Conference on Mechanism and Machine Science 2018. This conference includes contributions from both academic and industry researchers and will be of interest to scientists and students working in the field of mechanism and machine science.

Download or read book 2023 Asia Pacific International Symposium on Aerospace Technology APISAT 2023 Proceedings written by Song Fu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 1991 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book High Fidelity Optimization of Flapping Airfoils and Wings written by Matthew Culbreth and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flapping wings are interesting in many ways from both a scientific and an engineering perspective. They are also challenging to design and analyze due to the inherent complexity of both the kinematic motion of the wing and the resulting vortex-dominated fluid dynamics. One way to study flapping wings is to use an optimization approach to find kinematic motions that lead to efficient flight under various conditions. We use this approach, coupling high-fidelity 2D and 3D Navier-Stokes solvers with a gradient-based optimization algorithm. Results are presented for several optimizations of 2D airfoils and 3D wings undergoing periodic, flapping-type motions. In 2D the pitching and plunging NACA0012 airfoil case is considered, with optimizations being carried out to maximize propulsive efficiency and also to minimize input power given a target thrust constraint. In 3D rectangular and semi-elliptic wings of varying thickness that are hinged at the root are considered. The motion of the 3D wing is parameterized by spline control points that allow span-wise variation of twist, dihedral and sweep, allowing complex wing motions and deformations with relatively few parameters. Propulsive efficiency is maximized for the 3D wing in a non-twisting case as well as using one, two and four of these span-wise twist control points, and a case with one each of twist, dihedral and sweep control points. Wing thickness and planform effects are also considered, with optimizations being carried out for both $12\%$ thick and $2\%$ thick airfoil sections and using rectangular and semi-elliptic planform wings. The results of the optimizations lead to several conclusions, including that pitching and twisting can significantly improve the attainable propulsive efficiency, that twisting motions beyond a certain level of complexity offer no additional improvement in attainable propulsive efficiency, and that sweeping motions also do not increase attainable propulsive efficiency. Analysis of the flow physics of the optimal cases show that the high-performing cases operate in the absence of a persistent leading-edge vortex, but do display a stable, thin boundary region of recirculation during the middle portion of the stroke that destabilizes into shed vortices at the top and bottom of the stroke. The destabilization of this region is shown to be highly sensitive to variations in wing motion and geometry.

Download or read book Intelligent Robotics and Applications written by YongAn Huang and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-04 with total page 906 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The three volume set LNAI 10462, LNAI 10463, and LNAI 10464 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications, ICIRA 2017, held in Wuhan, China, in August 2017. The 235 papers presented in the three volumes were carefully reviewed and selected from 310 submissions. The papers in this third volume of the set are organized in topical sections on sensors and actuators; mobile robotics and path planning; virtual reality and artificial intelligence; aerial and space robotics; mechatronics and intelligent manufacturing.

Download or read book Advances on Mechanics Design Engineering and Manufacturing IV written by Salvatore Gerbino and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-09-24 with total page 1646 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gathers contributions presented at the International Joint Conference on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (JCM 2022), held on June 1–3, 2022, in Ischia, Italy. It reports on cutting-edge topics in product design and manufacturing, such as industrial methods for integrated product and process design; innovative design; and computer-aided design. Further topics covered include virtual simulation and reverse engineering; additive manufacturing; product manufacturing; engineering methods in medicine and education; representation techniques; and collaborative and soft robotics. The book is organized into five main parts, reflecting the focus and primary themes of the conference. The contributions presented here not only provide researchers, engineers and experts in a range of industrial engineering subfields with extensive information to support their daily work; they are also intended to stimulate new research directions, advanced applications of the methods discussed and future interdisciplinary collaborations.

Download or read book Design of Bio inspired Flexible Flapping Wing for MAV Application written by Arun Agrawal and published by ProQuest. This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Motivated by the demands for indoor reconnaissance in confined, hazardous, or inaccessible spaces, like tunnels, machine rooms, staircases etc., there has been much interest, over the past decade towards the design of hand-held- micro air vehicles (MAVs). However, the flapping flight of insects shows an unmatched performance. A key aspect of the insect flight, responsible for the generation of the aerodynamic forces in an efficient manner, is the flexibility of their wings. Insect wings are actuated only at the root, and undergo large deformations with passive shape adaptation during flapping. Bio-inspired design of a flexible mechanical wing for micro-air vehicle application is the focus of the current work, which is motivated by the superlative flight performance of hawkmoths. The distinguishing feature of an insect wing is the arrangement and the stiffness distribution of various veins. For the design of a mechanical wing, a two step procedure is followed: (i) the static load-deflection characteristics are measured experimentally for a real hawkmoth wing using a camera vision system; (ii) finite element analysis coupled with an optimization solver is used to design the mechanical wing whose overall static-load-deflection characteristics match with the observed load-deflection of the hawkmoth wing. The moduli of various veins in the design wing are selected as optimization variables in the finite element model to manipulate the stiffness distribution of the mechanical wing. The objective function in the optimization scheme is decoupled based on various observations from the design of insect wing found in nature, the finite element analysis, and the structural mechanics based on cantilever beam theory. Based on the design, a scaled mechanical wing is constructed. Finally, the aerodynamic performance of the bio-inspired flexible mechanical wing is tested on a robotic flapper, with commonly observed kinematics of flying insects, and compared with that of a similar geometry rigid wing.

Download or read book Flying Insects and Robots written by Dario Floreano and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-10-23 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flying insects are intelligent micromachines capable of exquisite maneuvers in unpredictable environments. Understanding these systems advances our knowledge of flight control, sensor suites, and unsteady aerodynamics, which is of crucial interest to engineers developing intelligent flying robots or micro air vehicles (MAVs). The insights we gain when synthesizing bioinspired systems can in turn benefit the fields of neurophysiology, ethology and zoology by providing real-life tests of the proposed models. This book was written by biologists and engineers leading the research in this crossdisciplinary field. It examines all aspects of the mechanics, technology and intelligence of insects and insectoids. After introductory-level overviews of flight control in insects, dedicated chapters focus on the development of autonomous flying systems using biological principles to sense their surroundings and autonomously navigate. A significant part of the book is dedicated to the mechanics and control of flapping wings both in insects and artificial systems. Finally hybrid locomotion, energy harvesting and manufacturing of small flying robots are covered. A particular feature of the book is the depth on realization topics such as control engineering, electronics, mechanics, optics, robotics and manufacturing. This book will be of interest to academic and industrial researchers engaged with theory and engineering in the domains of aerial robotics, artificial intelligence, and entomology.

Download or read book Aerodynamic Efficiency of Flapping Wings Applied to Micro and Nano Aerial Vehicles written by Salomon Maestas and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The purpose of this thesis is to devise a method for optimizing hovering efficiency in flapping-wing aerial vehicles (FWAV) and then to extend the study to include the effect of color on flapping aerodynamic efficiency. The thesis is divided into four chapters; (1) an introduction to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), (2) a detailed discussion of flapping-wing aerial vehicles, (3) a method for optimizing flapping-wing aerial vehicles, and (4) a study of the effect of color on flapping-wing aerodynamic efficiency. In Chapter 1, different types of drones and their applications are discussed. In Chapter 2, the design process, aerodynamics, as well as flight mechanisms of flapping-wing drones are presented.In Chapter 3, five different bird wing shapes with hovering capability are investigated, and their kinematics optimized for application in flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FWMAV). First, applying least square curve fitting, two polynomial functions are derived for the leading and trailing edge of each wing. Using these polynomial functions, geometric parameters of aspect ratio, the second and third moment of inertia, and the mean aerodynamic chord are calculated. The Gradient method is then used to determine the optimal pitch and flapping angle amplitude, which in turn provide the minimum aerodynamic power necessary to satisfy the hovering motion constraint for each wing.

Download or read book Wing Trajectory Optimization and Modelling for Flapping Flight written by Yagiz Bayiz and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Flying animals resort to fast, large-degree-of-freedom motion of flapping wings, a key feature that distinguishes them from rotary or fixed-winged robotic fliers with limited motion of aerodynamic surfaces. However, flapping-wing aerodynamics are characterized by highly unsteady and three-dimensional flows difficult to model or control, and accurate aerodynamic force predictions often rely on expensive computational or experimental methods. As a result, optimal flapping wing trajectories are often difficult to identify. Moreover, the vast wing trajectory space available to flapping fliers renders this optimization problem even more arduous. This dissertation aimed to develop the necessary tools to pursue flapping wing trajectory optimization through modeling, optimization, machine learning, and robotics. To achieve this goal, first, a dimensionless and multi-objective wing trajectory optimization framework based on a quasi-steady aerodynamic model was developed. With this framework, the family of optimal wing trajectories maximizing lift generation and minimizing power consumption was identified together with the corresponding Pareto fronts. This optimization was repeated at various Reynolds numbers (Re, from 100 to 8000) and aspect ratios (from 2 to 8) to reveal the sensitivity of the optimal wing trajectories and Pareto fronts to these control variables. These results were later compared with the performance of rotary wings. This study showed that the rotary flight is more power-efficient when the lift requirement is low, whereas the flapping flight is more capable and efficient in generating a high lift. Furthermore, it was also observed that as Reynolds number drops, the flapping wings become more and more preferable compared to the rotary wings. Next, a policy gradient algorithm was implemented on a dynamically scaled robotic wing to train the robot to (locally) optimal wing trajectories for flapping wings at the low Re. This model-less learning scheme avoided the issues observed in model-based trajectory optimization, and it was applied to two distinct scenarios. The first scenario was designed as an efficiency maximization problem for wing trajectories with simple parameterization and two degrees of freedom. In order to investigate the effects of stroke amplitude on the maximal efficiency, the wing was trained repeatedly with various prescribed stroke amplitudes while Re was kept constant. It was observed that as stroke amplitudes increased, the optimum efficiency increased. In the second application, a lift maximization problem at Re =1200 hovering flight was solved. In comparison to the first problem, this application included all three degrees of freedom of the wing kinematics in the learning problem and allowed the significant amount of trajectory space available to flapping fliers. Additionally, the locomotion control was performed by a central pattern generator (CPG) network. The CPG provided a biologically inspired means to generate rhythmic wing trajectories, enabling the application of the algorithms to even more complex problems and reducing the time span of the learning experiments by improving the sample generation speed. The results implied that the deviation from the stroke plane, which was often overlooked in the literature on wing kinematics optimization, might play an important role in lift generation. These studies were among the first to demonstrate that robotic systems can be trained in real-time to find high-performing locomotion strategies in complex fluid environments. As the final contribution of this dissertation, a computationally efficient and data-driven model of flapping wing aerodynamics was developed using Gaussian Process State-Space Models. The developed model dynamically mapped the local wing kinematics to aerodynamic forces/moments, and it was trained and validated using a large dataset of flapping-wing motions collected from a dynamically scaled robotic wing. This dynamic model surpassed the accuracy and generality of the existing data-driven quasi-steady models and captured the unsteady and nonlinear fluid effects pertinent to force generation without explicit information of fluid flows. Furthermore, the existence of this model implied that the unsteadiness of the flapping aerodynamics might pose a lesser problem to fliers' control systems than originally postulated. In addition, using this model, a comprehensive assessment of the control authority of key wing kinematic variables was provided through a cross-correlation analysis. This analysis revealed that the instantaneous aerodynamic forces/moments are largely predictable by the wing motion history within a half-stroke cycle. Moreover, the angle of attack, normal acceleration, and pitching motion had the strongest effects on the aerodynamic force/moment generation. Combined with the previous contribution, it was concluded that the flapping flight inherently offers high force control authority and predictability, which can be key to developing agile and stable aerial robots.