Energetics-based design of small flapping-wing micro air vehicles

Abstract

The energetics of a flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) is analyzed with the objective of designing it. The salient features of this paper are as follows: 1) designing an energy storage mechanism in the air vehicle similar to an insect thorax that stores part of the kinetic energy of the wing as elastic potential energy during a flapping cycle; 2) inclusion of simplified aerodynamic wing models and inertia of the mechanism using rigid-body modeling techniques; 3) optimization of parameters of the energy storage mechanism using the dynamic models, so that energy input from the external actuators is minimized during a flapping cycle. A series of engineering prototypes based on these studies have been planned which will justify the use of these mathematical techniques.