Abstract
Flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicles (FW-MAVs), inspired by small insects, have limitless potential to be capable of performing tasks in urban and indoor environments. Through the process of mimicking insect flight, however, there are a lot of challenges for successful flight of these vehicles, which include their design, fabrication, control, and propulsion. To this end, this paper investigates the wing design and fabrication of an X-wing FW-MAV and analyzes its performance in terms of thrust generation. It was designed and developed using a systematic approach. Two pairs of wings were fabricated with a traditional cut-and-glue method and an advanced vacuum mold method. The FW-MAV is equipped with inexpensive and tiny avionics, such as the smallest Arduino controller board, a remote-control receiver, standard sensors, servos, a motor, and a 1-cell battery. Thrust measurement was conducted to compare the performance of different wings at full throttle. Overall, this FW-MAV produces maximum vertical thrust at a pitch angle of 10 degrees. The wing having stiffeners and manufactured using the vacuum mold produces the highest thrust among the tested wings.
Highlights
Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are an active research focus that have caught the attention of global talents
Since fixed-wing MAVs are able to fly for a longer period of time, they have been widely used for surveillance, which requires a long-distance flight with proper planning [2]
This study has provides an insight into the electronics positioning on Flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicles (FW-MAVs)
Summary
Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are an active research focus that have caught the attention of global talents. The US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) defined the physical size of an MAV to be not more than 15 cm (usually referred to as a Reynolds number less than 105 ), and the maximum weight to be less than 100 g [1]. This definition, is not widely applied by all researchers because, until today, there have been technological limitations to produce smaller electronics and materials for MAVs within the defined sizes. To invent MAVs that can mimic natural flyers using the smallest possible manufactured parts, researchers usually do not observe a strict size limit when designing their MAVs. In general, there are three vehicle concepts: Rotary-wing, flapping-wing, and fixed-wing.
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