Design optimization and experimental study of a novel mechanism for a hover-able bionic flapping-wing micro air vehicle

Abstract

Allomyrina dichotoma has a natural ultra-high flying ability and maneuverability. Especially its ability to fly flexibly in the air, makes it more adaptable to the harsh ecological environment. In this study, a bionic flapping-wing micro air vehicle (FMAV) is designed and fabricated by mimicking the flight mode of A. dichotoma. Parametric design was employed for combining the airframe structure and flight characteristics analysis. To improve the transmission efficiency and compactness of the FMAV mechanisms, this study first analyses the body structure of A. dichotoma, and then proposes a novel mechanism of FMAV based on its biological motion characteristics, the flight motion characteristics, and its musculoskeletal system. By optimizing the flapping-wing mechanism and mimicking the flying mechanism of A. dichotoma, the large angle amplitude and the high-frequency flapping motion can be achieved to generate more aerodynamic force. Meanwhile, to improve the bionic effect and the wing performance of FMAV, the flexible deformation of A. dichotoma wings for each flapping period was observed by a high-speed camera. Furthermore, the bionic design of wings the prototype was carried out, therefore the wings can generate a high lift force in the flapping process. The experiment demonstrated that the aircraft can achieve a flapping angle of 160 degrees and 30 Hz flapping frequency. The attitude change of FMAV is realized by mimicking the movement for the change of attitude of the A. dichotoma, by changing the angle of attack of the wing, and executing the flight action of multiple degrees of freedom including pitch, roll and yaw. Finally, the aerodynamic experiment demonstrated that the prototype can offer 27.8 g lift and enough torque for altitude adjustment.

A Review of Research on the Mechanical Design of Hoverable Flapping Wing Micro-Air Vehicles

“…Similarly, the movement trajectory of most insects' wing tips in hovering flight also presents an "8" shape and a "0" shape [30]. Different from the body structure of hummingbirds, the musculoskeletal system of insects is more simple and efficient [53].…”

“…In 2020, Deng et al of the Beihang Robotics Institute took the Allomyrina dichotomus as the bionic object and optimized the flapping mechanism of Insect-inspired FWMAVs [30]. This prototype has a wingspan of 21 cm, a mass of 21.2 g (without battery), and a flapping frequency of 26 Hz.…”

“…Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has also been committed to research on insect flight mechanisms and prototype development. At present, it has developed several FWMAVs, including Delfly II [22] and Delfly Nimble [11]; Korea's Konkuk University developed KU-Beetle [23] aircraft and passive folding wings by studying the flight mode and flight mechanism of rhinoceros beetles; in addition, National University of Singapore [9], University of Maryland [24,25], Belgium's Brussels Free University [10,26], Purdue University [27,28], Beihang University [29,30], and the Harbin Institute of technology have also developed different hoverable FWMAVs prototypes and have made research progress, as shown in Fig. 5.…”

A novel bioinspired mechanism to elucidate the movement flexibility of the honeybee abdomen driven by muscles

“…Mechanism designs inspired by flight muscles have been extensively studied. For example, the wing muscles of Allomyrina dichotoma were used to design a novel micro‐flapping wing vehicle for ultrahigh flying and maneuverability (Deng et al ., 2020; Li et al ., 2021). To further improve aerodynamic performance, artificial muscle has been used to drive the bionic flapping wing mechanism (Chen & Zhang, 2019; Yang et al ., 2020).…”

“…However, it is very different from the actual distributed muscle drive mechanism, which limits its biological advantages. Moreover, kinematic analysis is of great significance for bionic mechanism research (Li et al ., 2012; Cheng et al ., 2019; Deng, et al ., 2020) and movement performance evaluation (Chen et al ., 2011; Phan et al ., 2016; Wang et al ., 2018; Chellapurath et al ., 2020). Overall, these works provide a basis for further studying the complete muscle distribution of honeybee abdomens and revealing the movement flexibility.…”