Many research studies have investigated the characteristics of bird flights as a source of bioinspiration for the design of flapping-wing micro air vehicles. However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no drone design targeted the exploitation of the aerodynamic benefits associated with avian group formation flight. Therefore, in this work, a conceptual design of a novel multi-flapping-wing drone that incorporates multiple pairs of wings arranged in a V-shape is proposed in order to simultaneously increase the propulsive efficiency and achieve superior performance. First, a mission plan is established, and a weight estimation is conducted for both 3-member and 5-member configurations of the proposed air vehicle. Several wing shapes and airfoils are considered, and aerodynamic simulations are conducted, to determine the optimal planform, airfoil, formation angle, and angle of attack. The simulation results reveal that the proposed bioinspired design can achieve a propulsive efficiency of 73.8%. A stability analysis and tail sizing procedure are performed for both 3-member and 5-member configurations. In addition, multiple flapping mechanisms are inspected for implementation in the proposed designs. Finally, the completed prototypes’ models of the proposed multi-flapping-wing air vehicles are presented, and their features are discussed. The aim of this research is to provide a framework for the conceptual design of bioinspired multi-flapping-wing drones and to demonstrate the sizing, weight estimation, and design procedures for this new type of air vehicles. This work establishes the first multi-flapping-wing drone design which exploits the aerodynamic features of the V-formation flight observed in birds to achieve superior performance in terms of payload and endurance.

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Several bird species have been observed to fly in V-formation, an arrangement which exploits aerodynamic features to allow the group to conserve energy when migrating over long distances without stopping and feeding. The use of such grouping arrangement and organized pattern has demonstrated longer endurance and less power consumption in comparison with single flights. In this work, a computationally efficient potential flow solver based on the unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM) is employed to assess the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings in forward flight in terms of lift and thrust generation along with the propulsive efficiency. The UVLM has the capability to simulate incompressible and inviscid flows over moving thin wings where the separation lines are known a priori. A bio-inspired, albatross wing shape is considered and its aerodynamic performance in formation flights is compared against conventional elliptical and rectangular wing shapes. The aerodynamic analysis is carried out for different wing arrangements of 3-body and 5-body V-formations to determine the optimal spacing parameters leading to maximum propulsive efficiency. The simulation results reveal that, at the optimal formation angle and separation distance, the albatross-inspired wing shape produces the most lift over the flapping cycle, while the rectangular wing shape generates the most thrust over the flapping cycle. Furthermore, the optimal configuration in terms of propulsive efficiency is found to be a 5-body V-formation utilizing the albatross wing shape with a separation distance set to one-third of the span and a formation angle set to 139°. The present study provides guidance for the design of multi-flapping wing air vehicles based on the expected flight mission. The albatross wing shape is found to have superior capability in producing lift, while the elliptical wing shape is observed to consume less power. The rectangular wing shape is found to produce higher thrust and then can achieve faster forward motion.

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