Aerodynamic Analysis of a Flapping Wing Aircraft for Short Landing

Abstract

An investigation into the aerodynamic characteristics has been presented for a bio-inspired flapping wing aircraft. Firstly, a mechanism has been developed to transform the usual rotation powered by a motor to a combined flapping and pitching motion of the flapping wing. Secondly, an experimental model of the flapping wing aircraft has been built and tested to measure the motion and aerodynamic forces produced by the flapping wing. Thirdly, aerodynamic analysis is carried out based on the measured motion of the flapping wing model using an unsteady aerodynamic model (UAM) and validated by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The difference of the average lift force between the UAM and CFD method is 1.3%, and the difference between the UAM and experimental results is 18%. In addition, a parametric study is carried out by employing the UAM method to analyze the effect of variations of the pitching angle on the aerodynamic lift and drag forces. According to the study, the pitching amplitude for maximum lift is in the range of 60°~70° as the flight velocity decreases from 5 m/s to 1 m/s during landing.