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Application and Improvements of the Wing Deformation Capture with Simulation for Flapping Micro Aerial Vehicle

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Abstract

Wing deformation capture with simulation is a mixed experimental-numerical approach whereby the wing deformation during flapping is captured using high-speed cameras and used as an input for the numerical solver. This is an alternative approach compared to pure experiment or full fluid structure interaction simulation. This study is an update to the previous paper by Tay et al., which aims to address the previous limitations. We show through thrust and vorticity contour plots that this approach can simulate Flapping Micro Aerial Vehiclex (FMAVs) with reasonable accuracy. Next, we use this approach to explain the thrust improvement when an additional rib is added to the original membrane wing, which is due to longer duration for the new wing to open during the fling stage. Lastly, by decreasing the number of points and frames per cycle on the wing, we can simplify and shorten the digitization process. These results show that this approach is an accurate and practical alternative which can be applied to general bio-inspired research.

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Acknowledgment

The computational work for this article was done on resources of the National Supercomputing Computer, Singapore (https://www.nscc.sg). The authors wish to thank the National Supercomputing Computer for their kind support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Aerodynamics & Propulsion, Temasek Laboratories, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117411, Republic of Singapore

    Wee-Beng Tay & Siddharth Jadhav

  2. Shaanxi Aerospace Flight Vehicle Design Key Laboratory, School of Astronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, 710072, China

    Jian-Lei Wang

Authors
  1. Wee-Beng Tay
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  2. Siddharth Jadhav
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  3. Jian-Lei Wang
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Correspondence to Wee-Beng Tay.

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Tay, WB., Jadhav, S. & Wang, JL. Application and Improvements of the Wing Deformation Capture with Simulation for Flapping Micro Aerial Vehicle. J Bionic Eng 17, 1096–1108 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42235-020-0100-x

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