Abstract
Insect flight studies have advanced our understanding of flight biomechanics and inspire micro-aerial vehicle (MAV) technologies. A challenge of centimeter or millimeter scale flight is that small forces are produced from relatively complex wing motions. We describe the design and fabrication of a millimeter-sized wing flapping mechanism to simultaneously control pitch and stroke of insect and MAV wings. Using micro-fabrication techniques we construct this wing driver and observe that wing motion matches the natural degrees of freedom of insect wings. We actuate wing stroke-position and pitch in open-loop at frequencies relevant to Dipteran and Hymenopteran flight (100-200Hz) and describe the advancements and limitations of this system.
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Gravish, N., Combes, S., Wood, R.J. (2014). A Bio-inspired Wing Driver for the Study of Insect-Scale Flight Aerodynamics. In: Duff, A., Lepora, N.F., Mura, A., Prescott, T.J., Verschure, P.F.M.J. (eds) Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems. Living Machines 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8608. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09435-9_41
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09435-9_41
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09434-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-09435-9
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