Abstract
One of the important steps in the sizing process of fixed and flapping wing micro air vehicles (MAVs) is weight estimation of the electrical and structural components. In order to enhance the flight performance and endurance of MAVs, it is required to carefully estimate their weight with a minimum error. In this study, methodologies to estimate the weight of fixed and flapping wing MAVs are proposed. After dividing the total weight of the MAV into weights of structural and electrical components, these two weights are separately identified. The weight of the MAV electrical components is estimated by using engineering design techniques and the weight of the structure is identified by using statistical and computational methods. The proposed methodology for structural weight estimation is based on calculating the percentage of the used material in the construction of different parts of MAVs and then presenting the weight of each part in terms of the wing surface. The proposed computational method gives the exact estimation for the weight of each structure component, such as wing, tail, fuselage, and etc. Based on the offered method for weight estimation of MAVs, the weight estimation of a fixed wing MAV with inverse Zimmerman planform and a flapping wing MAV named “Thunder I” are experimentally shown. This developed methodology gives guidelines for weight estimation and determination of the structural weight percentages in order to design and fabricate efficient fixed and flapping wing MAVs.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Srigrarom S, Chan WL (2015) Ornithopter type flapping wings for autonomous micro air vehicles. Aerospace 2(2):235–278
Ellington CP, van den Berg C, Willmott AP, Thomas ALR (1996) Leading-edge vortices in insect flight. Nature 384:626–630
Jones KD, Platzer MF (2009) Design and development considerations for biologically inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles. Exp Fluids 46:799–810
Fenelon MAA, Furukawa T (2010) Design of an active flapping wing mechanism and a micro aerial vehicle using a rotary actuator. Mech Mach Theory 45:137–146
Hassanalian M, Radmanesh M, Sedaghat A (2014) Increasing flight endurance of MAVs using multiple quantum well solar cells. Internat J Aeronaut Sp Sci 15:212–217
Xiaolei Z, Xiaoyi J, Yang X, Liqiang Z (2014) The research and design of experimental prototype in flapping-wing micro-air-vehicles. Adv Nat Sci 7:1–7
Abdelkefi A, Ghommem M (2013) Piezoelectric energy harvesting from morphing wing motions for micro air vehicles. Theor Appl Mech Lett 3:052004
Mueller TJ (2001) Fixed and flapping wing aerodynamics for micro air vehicle applications. AIAA, New York
Hassanalian M, Khaki H, Khosrawi M (2014) A new method for design of fixed wing micro air vehicle. Proc Inst Mech Eng J Aerosp Eng 229:837–850
Kurtulus DF, David L, Farcy A, Alemdaroglu N (2007) Aerodynamic characteristics of flapping motion in hover. Exp Fluids 44:23–36
Liu H, Wang X, Nakata T, Yoshida K (2013) Aerodynamics and flight stability of bio-inspired, flapping-wing micro air vehicles. In: Autonomous control systems and vehicles. Volume 65 of the series intelligent systems, control and automation: Science and Engineering. Springer Japan, pp 145–157
Mohamed A, Abdulrahim M, Watkins S, Clothier R (2015) Development and flight testing of a turbulence mitigation system for micro air vehicles. J Field Robot 33:639–660
Combes TP, Malik AS, Bramesfeld G, McQuilling MW (2015) Efficient fluid-structure interaction method for conceptual design of flexible, fixed-wing micro-air-vehicle wings. AIAA J 53(6):1442–1454
Shyy W, Aono H, Chimakurthi SK, Trizila P, Kang CK, Cesnik CE, Liu H (2010) Recent progress in flapping wing aerodynamics and aeroelasticity. Prog Aerosp Sci 46(7):284–327
Mountcastle AM, Thomas LD (2010) Aerodynamic and functional consequences of wing compliance, animal locomotion. Springer, Berlin, pp 311–320
Nakata T, Liu H, Tanaka Y, Nishihashi N, Wang X, Sato A (2011) Aerodynamics of a bio-inspired flexible flapping-wing micro air vehicle. Bioinspir Biomimet 6(4):045002
Jung S (2004) Design and development of a micro air vehicle (MAV): test-bed for vision-based control. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Florida, USA
Jouannet C, Silva SE, Krus P (2004) Use of CAD tools for weight estimation in aircraft conceptual design. In: 24th International congress of the aeronautical sciences, Yokohama, Japan, 29 August–3 September 2004
Ardema MD, Chambers MC, Patron AP, Hahn AS, Miura H, Moore MD (1996) Analytical fuselage and wing weight estimation of transport aircraft. NASA Technical Memorandum, 110392
Roskam J (1985) Aircraft design part I: preliminary sizing of airplanes. Darcorporation, Lawrence
Torenbeek E (2013) Synthesis of subsonic airplane design: an introduction to the preliminary design of subsonic general aviation and transport aircraft, with emphasis on layout, aerodynamic design, propulsion and performance. Springer, Berlin
Raymer DP (2006) Aircraft design: a conceptual approach and Rds-student, software for aircraft design, sizing, and performance set (AIAA Education). AIAA, New York
Hassanalian M, Abdelkefi A (2016) Design, manufacturing, and flight testing of a fixed wing micro air vehicle with Zimmerman planform. Meccanica 51:1–18
Hung C-C, Lin C-H, Teng Y-J, Chang C-M, Wu Y-K (2010) Study on mini UAV designs to payload requirements by airplane sizing methodology. In: AIAA 2010 conference and exhibit, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, 20–22 April 2010
Mueller TJ, Kellogg JC, Ifju PG, Shkarayev SV (2007) Introduction to the design of fixed-wing micro air vehicles including three case studies. AIAA, Reston
Beasley B (2006) A study of planar and nonplaner membrane wing planforms for the design of a flapping wing micro air vehicle. Doctoral dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park
Gillis B, Kozak J, Baker J, Hein D, Lemieux A, Fu TC, Hess JED, Phadnis A, Grilly A, Le C, Schoennagel V (2005) RIT micro air vehicle preliminary design report. Rochester Institute of Technology, New York
Gerrard C, Ward M (2007) Final year honours project micro air vehicle. The University of Adelaide, Adelaide
Ryan M (2012) Design optimization and classification of compliant mechanisms for flapping wing micro air vehicles. Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Beng TW (2003) Dynamics and control of a flapping wing aircraft. Doctoral Dissertation, National University of Singapore
Silin D (2010) Aerodynamics and flight performance of flapping wing micro air vehicles. University of Arizona, Tucson
Müller M, Schröter A, Lindenberg C (2007) Technical description of the M.A.2C.’08 MAV. ENAC, Toulouse
(2006) IUT aerospace team report. Design, fabrication and flight test of HOMA MAV. Isfahan University of Technology
Bode F, Lindenberg C, Müller M, Schröter A (2005) The Glotzer MAV: real time video from a low cost autonomously flying aircraft
Coopanah D, Krashanitsa R, Malladi B, Silin D, Shkarayev S Design of dragonfly micro air vehicles at the University of Arizona. In: The 2rd US-European competition and workshop on micro air vehicles, September 2006, Florida, USA
Richardson T (2007) Micro UAVs. In: The institution of engineering and technology seminar, University of Bristol, 20th February 2007
Somers DM (2005) Effects of airfoil thickness and maximum lift coefficient on roughness sensitivity: 1997–1998. Period of performance. National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Ma D, Zhao Y, Qiao Y, Li G (2015) Effects of relative thickness on aerodynamic characteristics of airfoil at a low Reynolds number. Chin J Aeronaut 28(4):1003–1015
Schmidt LV (1998) Introduction to aircraft flight dynamics. AIAA, New York
Stevens BL, Lewis FL, Johnson EN (2015) Aircraft control and simulation: dynamics, controls design, and autonomous systems. Wiley, London
Roskam J (1995) Airplane flight dynamics and automatic flight controls. DARcorporation, Lawrence
Hepperie M Basic design of flying wing models. www.wh-aerotools.de/airfoils
Hassanalian M, Abdelkefi A, Wei M, Ziaei-Rad S (2016) A novel methodology for wing sizing of bio-inspired flapping wing micro air vehicles: theory and prototype. Acta Mech. doi:10.1007/s00707-016-1757-4
Hassanalian M, Abdelkefi A (2016) Effective design of flapping wing actuation mechanisms: theory and experiments. AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition, San Diego
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Appendix
Appendix
Substituting Eq. (6) into Eq. (7), one obtains:
The parameter c r can be written as a function of the wing surface as follows:
Then, by substituting the value of c r , in Eq. (7), we get:
If we consider a delta planform with λ > 0.375 and using Eq. (16), the tail arm can be expressed as:
Substituting Eq. (15) into Eq. (6), and using the calculated formula for c r , one gets:
Using the previous expression and Fig. 7, tanΦ 0.25 can be written as:
Substituting tanΦ 0.25 in the expression of l, one obtains:
The previous expression can be simplified to be:
Substituting c r by its expression, we have:
Simplifying the previous expression, one gets:
And then:
As for Eq. (71), we have:
Substituting c r by its expression, we have:
Then,
According to Tables 11 and 14, for leading edge spar, we have:
Substituting the corresponding values for the density and the diameter of the carbon rod and aspect ratio, one obtains:
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hassanalian, M., Abdelkefi, A. Methodologies for weight estimation of fixed and flapping wing micro air vehicles. Meccanica 52, 2047–2068 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-016-0568-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-016-0568-y