Flapping flight in the wake of a leading insect

Abstract

This study explores the wake effects of an upstream leading insect on the flight performance of a following one. The potential-flow based aerodynamic model, which combines the unsteady panel and unsteady vortex-lattice methods, is used to compute aerodynamic loads and simulate wake structures. The accuracy of the current aerodynamic model was confirmed in this study. The paper shows that the following insect does not cause any noticeable impact on the leading insect aerodynamics, while unfavorable effects due to the presence of the leading insect were found on the following counterpart. Nonetheless, by choosing a proper wing kinematic phase, the following insect may absorb the energy of the leading insect’s trailing wake, and therefore mitigate these negative effects. The variations of the required mechanical power of the following insect against the wing kinematic phase difference were shown to be related to the travel of the leading insect’s downstroke starting vortex.