Mechanism Design and Motion Analysis of a Flapping-Wing Air Vehicle

Abstract

Micro flapping-wing air vehicles (FWAV) are highly appreciated by scientists and scholars around the world due to their small size, high flexibility, and better manoeuvrability. There are huge potential applications of flapping-wing robots in rescue, survey, and search, as they can enter more dangerous and narrow spaces to accomplish tasks that were previously impossible for people. In this paper, we first analyze the flapping motion of birds by reviewing a large amount of information and literature and identifying the sources of lift and thrust during flight. Then, the double crank and double rocker mechanisms are optimized as the flapping mechanism. Proper flapping-wing size is further determined by analyzing the relative position between the driving mechanism and the flapping mechanism. Moreover, a pitch mechanism consisting of ball hinges is designed to realize the wing’s pitching motion for additional thrust. The fuselage and landing gear of the flapping-wing robot are designed for low air resistance and lightweight, and the tail mechanism are designed to have both roll and pitch freedoms, offering excellent manoeuvrability during flight. Simulation results show positive lift force is generated based on the novel pitching design for the small wing. The research in this paper is an important resource for novice researchers to design and study the advanced and complex problems of flapping-wing air vehicles.

Modeling and Improvement for String-Based Drive Mechanism in Insect-like Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle

“…At the same time, there were n + 1 tangent points on the Γ trajectory, which can be denoted as Equation (21).…”

“…The mechanisms employed by existing flapping MAVs to achieve wing flapping can be broadly categorized as follows: gear-bar linkage-based mechanisms [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], springbar linkage-based mechanisms [23]; string-based mechanisms [24][25][26][27], 'Smart Composite Microstructures' (SCM) and voltage-driven piezoelectric bimorphs mechanisms [28][29][30][31], and motor direct drive mechanisms [32,33]. Among these, the voltage-driven piezoelectric bimorph mechanism boasts a high flapping speed but suffers from a low driving capacity.…”

Kinematics Analysis and Simulation of the Frame Mechanism of a Small-Caliber Deep Well Rescue Robot

“…It is difficult for the deep well rescue robot to adapt to the deep well rescue of different environments; the quality is bulky, and the safety performance is poor. The rescue can solve the relatively simple rescue of the well condition, and the rescue efficiency of more complex well conditions is low [5][6][7].…”

Optimal Elastic Wing for Flapping-Wing Robots Through Passive Morphing

“…In the case of flapping-wing robots, the design of such devices are less explored due to the complexity of their aerodynamics, such as high unsteady and three dimensional viscous flows, in addition to the large inertial forces that they must withstand during the flapping at usual frequencies. The current state of the art on ornithopters wing morphing is extremely narrow, including mainly active morphing such as rigid-bar mechanisms as in [3] and [4] or more complex that mimic bats kinematics [5] or use active morphing by shape Manuscript received: July 5, 2022; revised: September 21, 2022; accepted: October 24, 2022. This paper was recommended for publication by Editor Xinyu Liu upon evaluation of the Associate Editor and Reviewers' comments.…”