Bioinspired morphing wings for extended flight envelope and roll control of small drones

Luca, Matteo Di; Mintchev, Stefano; Heitz, G.; Noca, Flavio; Floreano, Dario

doi:10.1098/rsfs.2016.0092

Cited by 125 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…The authors suggested that an increase in lift generation and smooth gust rejection can be achieved thanks to the oscillations of the membrane that energize the boundary layers, allowing a longer flow attachment. Finally, in [6] another type of morphing wing featuring feathers attached to the leading edge was designed and integrated on a drone.…”

Section: Fixed Wing (Gliding)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion

Calisti

Picardi

Laschi

2017

J. R. Soc. Interface.

233

147

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Soft robotics and its related technologies enable robot abilities in several robotics domains including, but not exclusively related to, manipulation, manufacturing, human -robot interaction and locomotion. Although field applications have emerged for soft manipulation and human-robot interaction, mobile soft robots appear to remain in the research stage, involving the somehow conflictual goals of having a deformable body and exerting forces on the environment to achieve locomotion. This paper aims to provide a reference guide for researchers approaching mobile soft robotics, to describe the underlying principles of soft robot locomotion with its pros and cons, and to envisage applications and further developments for mobile soft robotics.

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Section: Fixed Wing (Gliding)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion

Calisti

Picardi

Laschi

2017

J. R. Soc. Interface.

233

147

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“…It thus represents a trade-off between clearance and aerodynamic effectiveness. To determine how effectively insect-inspired flapping wings might negate lateral wind, Chirarattananon et al rsfs.royalsocietypublishing.org Interface Focus 7: 20160119 membranous wings of bats, birds morph their wings to much greater extent, whereas previous aerial robots demonstrated the effect of bird-like wing morphing on flight performance, Di Luca et al [18] now demonstrate flight control through asymmetric wing morphing. Based on theoretical and experimental data, they show that fully deployed feathered wings improve robot manoeuvrability, while partly folded wings are beneficial for speed maintenance in strong headwinds.…”

Section: Aerial Robotics Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on theoretical and experimental data, they show that fully deployed feathered wings improve robot manoeuvrability, while partly folded wings are beneficial for speed maintenance in strong headwinds. These new feathered wings, which can fold and unfold very rapidly, can also be used controlling the roll angle to initiate and control turning, without additional control structures such as traditional ailerons [18]. Finally, an aquatic aerial robot by Siddall et al [19] is capable of diving into the water by folding its wings backward like a bird.…”

Section: Aerial Robotics Advancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coevolving advances in animal flight and aerial robotics

Lentink

2017

Interface Focus.

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Our understanding of animal flight has inspired the design of new aerial robots with more effective flight capacities through the process of biomimetics and bioinspiration. The aerodynamic origin of the elevated performance of flying animals remains, however, poorly understood. In this themed issue, animal flight research and aerial robot development coalesce to offer a broader perspective on the current advances and future directions in these coevolving fields of research. Together, four reviews summarize and 14 reports contribute to our understanding of low Reynolds number flight. This area of applied aerodynamics research is challenging to dissect due to the complicated flow phenomena that include laminarturbulent flow transition, laminar separation bubbles, delayed stall and nonlinear vortex dynamics. Our mechanistic understanding of low Reynolds number flight has perhaps been advanced most by the development of dynamically scaled robot models and new specialized wind tunnel facilities: in particular, the tiltable Lund flight tunnel for animal migration research and the recently developed AFAR hypobaric wind tunnel for high-altitude animal flight studies. These world-class facilities are now complemented with a specialized low Reynolds number wind tunnel for studying the effect of turbulence on animal and robot flight in much greater detail than previously possible. This is particular timely, because the study of flight in extremely laminar versus turbulent flow opens a new frontier in our understanding of animal flight. Advancing this new area will offer inspiration for developing more efficient high-altitude aerial robots and removes roadblocks for aerial robots operating in turbulent urban environments.

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“…These unique features are fundamentally parallel to the morphing of MAV wing concept, and the features contribute to less complex structure and provide smooth continuity shape changes. However, mimicking the natural flyer agility and flight performance has led to a complex study of the mechanism, fluid-structure interactions (FSI) [6], aeroelasticity, flight dynamics [7] and control systems. Despite the maturity in computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the aerodynamics and structural attitudes of natural flyers are still not fully understood and are difficult to implement in artificial flyers such as MAV [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lift distribution of washout twist morphing MAV wing

Ismail

Yusoff

Sharudin

et al. 2018

IJET

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Micro Air Vehicle, or also commonly known as MAV, is a miniature aircraft that has been gaining interest in the industry. MAV is defined as a flying platform with 15cm wingspan and operates at a speed of around 10m/s. Recently, MAV has been exposed with the latest development and link towards the biologically-inspired designs such as morphing wing. Twist morphing wing is one of the latest MAV wing design developments. The application of Twist Morphing (TM) on MAV wing has been previously known to produce better aerodynamic performance. Previous study in washin TM wing has shown a promising possibility of generating higher lift force. Despite the benevolent performance exhibited by the washin TM wing, the lift distribution for the washout type of TM MAV is relatively unknown and still open to be explored. This is probably due to the lack of experimental test rig to produce the washout twist morphing motion on the MAV wing. Therefore, this research aims to produce a special test rig for washout TM wing that is compatible for wind tunnel experimental testing. By using the special test rig, the experimental investigation on the lift performance of washout TM MAV wing can be done. Based on the wing deformation results, it clearly shows that the proposed test rig is capable to produce up to 19.5mm tip deflection at the morphing point, which is also resulting in a significant morphing motion. Higher morphing force induces larger morphing motion. Based on the lift distribution results, they show that the morphing motion has significantly affected the overall lift distribution on the MAV wing. The morphing motion on TM wing has produced at least 17.6% and 5.33% lower CL and CLmax magnitude, respectively, with the membrane wing especially at the pre-stall region. However, the TM wing is still able to maintain the stall angle similar to the baseline wing at αstall= 31°. By maintaining high αstall value with lower CL and CLmax magnitude, TM wing produces more agility for the MAV maneuverability that will be useful for indoor mission or obstacle avoidance flight.

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Bioinspired morphing wings for extended flight envelope and roll control of small drones

Cited by 125 publications

References 17 publications

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion

Fundamentals of soft robot locomotion

Coevolving advances in animal flight and aerial robotics

Lift distribution of washout twist morphing MAV wing

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