Lift and Thrust Characteristics of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (MAV)

Abstract

Flapping wing propulsion is center of attention in the field of micro air vehicle research in recent years. Our knowledge in unsteady aerodynamics is insufficient to design an efficient wing that produces the required lift and thrust force for the flapping wing micro air vehicle. The unsteady aerodynamic effects (Lift and Thrust) on aerodynamic wing design parameters were discussed in this paper. The effect of aspect ratio and the wing planform shape on lift and thrust force were determined experimentally. The experiments were conducted in an open jet low speed wind tunnel having test section of 350x350x600 mm in Madras Institute of Technology (MIT). A rack and gear type new flapping mechanism was designed and fabricated, which was used as test bed for all the experiments. And also an experiment was conducted to determine the effect of torsional flexibility of the wing and this experiment validates the conclusion of wing planform experiment on lift.