On the Aerodynamic Analysis and Conceptual Design of Bioinspired Multi-Flapping-Wing Drones

Abstract

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.

Review of Biomimetic Approaches for Drones

“…To realize efficient flight over long distances and durations, we can study the collective behavior of migratory birds. The researchers at New Mexico State University [35] took advantage of the aerodynamics of the V-formation of birds during flight. They proposed a conceptual design of a multi-flapping-wing drone with multiple pairs of wings arranged in a V-shape, which was inspired by the aerodynamic advantage of the high propulsive efficiency of collective bird flight.…”

Unsteady aerodynamic analysis and effectiveness of bio-inspired flapping wings in V-formation flight

“…8 were first replicated. It should be clarified that "multi-flapping-wing system" refers to a single drone incorporating several wing pairs arranged in V-formation, 14 as opposed to multiple drones flying in a group or "swarm" which would require the implementation of sophisticated control methods to maintain the desired separation between members. [35][36][37] In this verification study, a rectangular wing shape with an aspect ratio of 6 and a NACA 83XX camber line was arranged in a 3-body V-formation.…”

“…This concept was further explored in Ref. 14, in which a novel concept for a multi-flapping-wing drone was designed to incorporate a V-formation arrangement of multiple flapping wings within a single air vehicle. Furthermore, there are several scenarios where this type of drone with enhanced performance would prove useful.…”

Distributed State Estimation for Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicles with Information Fusion Correction

“…Notably, significant advancements have been achieved in the domain of flapping-wing flying vehicles, exemplified by noteworthy creations such as the Nano HummingBird [ 7 ] from the United States, SmartBird [ 8 ] from Germany, and Dove [ 9 ] from the Northwestern Polytechnical University of China. Despite the progress in position control, trajectory tracking, and formation control facilitated by advancements in sensor networks, wireless communication, bionics, and aerodynamics, there remains a substantial gap in exploring the distributed state estimation of multiple FMAVs following stabilized flight [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. In practical applications, the distributed information interaction network among FMAVs is susceptible to information incompleteness phenomena, encompassing missing sampling signals, time delays, and various internal or external interferences.…”