Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle Designs by SK Gupta's Group

Students

Arvind Ananthanarayanan, Wojciech Bejgerowski, Tobias Karch, Dominik Mueller, Guru Ramu, and Philippe Wandji

Faculty

Satyandra K. Gupta

Sponsors

Army MURI and NSF

Summary

Successful realization of a flapping wing micro air vehicle (MAV) requires development of a light weight drive-mechanism that can convert the continuous rotary motion of the motor into oscillatory flapping motion of the wings. The drive mechanism should have low weight to maximize the payload and battery capacity. It should also have high power transmission efficiency to maximize the operational range and minimize weight of the motor. In order to make flapping wing MAVs attractive in search, rescue, and recovery efforts, they should be disposable from the cost point of view. By exploiting latest advances in the manufacturing processes, we have developed a family of novel drive mechanisms. These drive mechanisms have been used to realize several working flapping MAVs.

Results

MAV name Purpose Specifications

Exploratory bird
| video |

eb

 The purpose of this design was to test the basic compliant mechanism concept and the weight distribution that leads to sustained flapping wing flight. Weight: 8.3 g (including battery)
Wing Span: 33.1 cm
Pay Load Capability: 0 g

Small bird
| video |

sb

 This was our first effort in designing a fully steerable lightweight bird. Weight: 12.8 g (including battery)
Wing Span: 34.3 cm
Flapping Frequency: 12.1
Pay Load Capability: 2.5 g (excluding battery)

Big bird
| video 1 |
| video 2 (acrobatics) |

bb

 This was our attempt at increasing the payload of the bird to carry on-board sensors. Weight: 35.0 g (including battery)
Wing Span: 57.2 cm
Flapping Frequency: 4.5 Hz
Pay Load Capaility: 12.0 g (excluding battery)

Big bird with vision
| video |

c

 We used the payload capacity of the big bird to attach a video camera with radio transmitter to get images as seen by the bird. Weight: 42.2 g (including battery and video camera)
Wing Span: 57.2 cm
Flapping Frequency: 4.5 Hz
Pay Load Capability: 4.8 g (excluding battery and camera)

Big bird with folding wing
| video |

fw

 By mimicking the folding of the bird’s wing, we slowed the flight velocity by 10% without any appreciable decrease in the payload capability of the the bird. Weight: 36.9 g (including battery)
Wing Span: 57.2 cm
Flapping Frequency: 4.5 Hz
Pay Load Capability: 10.0 g (excluding battery)