Role of Active Morphing in the Aerodynamic Performance of Flapping Wings in Formation Flight

Ethan Billingsley,Mehdi Ghommem,Rui Vasconcellos,Abdessattar Abdelkefi

doi:10.3390/drones5030090

Abstract

Migratory birds have the ability to save energy during flight by arranging themselves in a V-formation. This arrangement enables an increase in the overall efficiency of the group because the wake vortices shed by each of the birds provide additional lift and thrust to every member. Therefore, the aerodynamic advantages of such a flight arrangement can be exploited in the design process of micro air vehicles. One significant difference when comparing the anatomy of birds to the design of most micro air vehicles is that bird wings are not completely rigid. Birds have the ability to actively morph their wings during the flapping cycle. Given these aspects of avian flight, the objective of this work is to incorporate active bending and torsion into multiple pairs of flapping wings arranged in a V-formation and to investigate their aerodynamic behavior using the unsteady vortex lattice method. To do so, the first two bending and torsional mode shapes of a cantilever beam are considered and the aerodynamic characteristics of morphed wings for a range of V-formation angles, while changing the group size in order to determine the optimal configuration that results in maximum propulsive efficiency, are examined. The aerodynamic simulator incorporating the prescribed morphing is qualitatively verified using experimental data taken from trained kestrel flights. The simulation results demonstrate that coupled bending and twisting of the first mode shape yields the highest propulsive efficiency over a range of formation angles. Furthermore, the optimal configuration in terms of propulsive efficiency is found to be a five-body V-formation incorporating coupled bending and twisting of the first mode at a formation angle of 140 degrees. These results indicate the potential improvement in the aerodynamic performance of the formation flight when introducing active morphing and bioinspiration.

Highlights

Some species of birds arrange themselves in a V-formation during flight [1]
An aerodynamic analysis was conducted to determine the formation angle and morphing type that lead to the optimal aerodynamic performance of the followers in V-formation flight using a rectangular wing shape
The prescribed morphing used in this work was based on the first two mode shapes for the bending and twisting of a thin cantilever beam, where this bending and twisting were either coupled or prescribed separately

Summary

Introduction

It is well established that such a group arrangement is helpful to improve flight efficiency and save energy [2,3]. This enables them to fly over long distances without stopping and feeding. The saving of energy is mainly attributed to the interactions between the shed wake vortices and the flapping wings These wake vortices may increase the lift produced by each of the birds in the group, which leads to a greater overall group efficiency when compared to a bird in solo flight [4]. Birds have flexible wrists which allow the wings to bend and twist throughout the flapping cycle [5]. The primary muscles responsible for the downstroke and upstroke of the wings are the pectoralis and supracoracoideus

Objectives

Results

Conclusion