Design of and Experiments on a Dragonfly-Inspired Robot

TLDR

Dragonflies possess two pairs of independently controlled wings and highly dexterous wing motions that enable hovering, rapid turns, sideways flight, and gliding, giving them superior flight performance among insects. The study aims to create a dragonfly‑inspired robot that replicates these kinematics to achieve flight performance surpassing current insect‑robot designs. Two generations of robotic dragonfly prototypes were built to implement simplified dragonfly kinematics. Preliminary experiments measured the prototypes’ kinematics and aerodynamic forces, demonstrating the feasibility of the design.

Abstract

This paper describes the design of dragonfly-inspired robots. Dragonflies demonstrate unique and superior flight performance compared with most other insect species. They are equipped with two pairs of independently controlled wings. The high level of dexterity in wing motion of the dragonfly allows it to hover, fly fast forward, make turns rapidly, fly sideways and even glide. A dragonfly-inspired robot that could effectively mimic those kinematics would potentially exhibit superior flight performance compared with existing designs of insect robots. In this paper, we introduce two generations of robotic dragonfly prototypes developed to implement simplified dragonfly kinematics. Preliminary experiments on kinematics and aerodynamic force measurements of the prototypes are also presented.