Abstract
Dragonfly flight is unique: Dragonflies can manoeuvre in all directions, glide without having to beat their wings and hover in the air. Their ability to move each of their four wings independently enables them to slow down and turn abruptly, to accelerate swiftly and even to fly backwards. We looked into the mechanics of the dragonfly flight and managed to transfer its flight dynamics into an ultralight flying object: the BionicOpter. With a wingspan of 63 cm and a body length of 44 cm, the model dragonfly weighs just 175 g. A brushless motor actuates the four wings and is used to alter the flapping frequency. Eight servo motors allow the amplitude and the twisting angle of each wing to be changed independently making the BionicOpter almost as agile and fast as its natural role model. Here we present how dragonfly flight dynamics can inspire future design of MAVs.
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Acknowledgment
Numerous people contributed by adding important knowledge regarding flight dynamics, electronics, 3D printing, etc. and helped with generating pictures, animations and videos. The authors want to thank all of these helpful colleagues.
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Appendix
Appendix
Videos showing BionicOpter’s flight behaviour and an animation describing the actuation of the BionicOpter can be found here: www.youtube.com/user/FestoHQ.
Real-world recordings: http://youtu.be/nj1yhz5io20.
Animation: http://youtu.be/JUAD7nhyzhU.
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Gaissert, N., Mugrauer, R., Mugrauer, G., Jebens, A., Jebens, K., Knubben, E.M. (2014). Inventing a Micro Aerial Vehicle Inspired by the Mechanics of Dragonfly Flight. In: Natraj, A., Cameron, S., Melhuish, C., Witkowski, M. (eds) Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems. TAROS 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8069. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43645-5_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43645-5_11
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