Design and demonstration of a biomimetic wing section using a lightweight piezo-compositeactuator (LIPCA)

Abstract

This paper describes the design and evaluation of biomimetic wing sections, where thetrailing edges of the wing sections are actuated by the piezoceramic actuator LIPCA(lightweight piezo-composite actuator). Thermal analogy based on linear elasticity was usedfor the design and analysis of the wing sections. In the actuation test of the wing sections,the effective deflection angle of the trailing edge was approximately five degrees at 300 Vinput. The predicted and measured actuation displacements agreed very well up to aninput of 150 V. However, the real actuation displacement became larger than theestimated value for higher input voltages due to the material non-linearity of the leadzirconate titanate (PZT) wafer in the LIPCA. The biomimetic wing sectionscan be used for control surfaces of small scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).