Related papers: State-space aerodynamic model reveals high force c…
Flapping-wing insects, birds, and robots are thought to offset the high power cost of oscillatory wing motion by using elastic elements for energy storage and return. Insects possess highly resilient elastic regions in their flight anatomy…
Insects use flight muscles attached at the base of the wings to produce impressive wing flapping frequencies. The maximum power output of these flight muscles is insufficient to maintain such wing oscillations unless there is good elastic…
An aerial vehicle powered by flapping feathered wings was designed, developed and fabricated. Different from legacy flapping-wing aerial vehicles with membrane wings, the new design uses authentic bird feathers to fabricate wings. In field…
Unsteady aerodynamic models are necessary to accurately simulate forces and develop feedback controllers for wings in agile motion; however, these models are often high dimensional or incompatible with modern control techniques. Recently,…
We study experimentally a four-winged flapping flyer with chord-wise flexible wings in a self-propelled setup. For a given physical configuration of the flyer (i.e. fixed distance between the forewing and hindwing pairs and fixed wing…
Insects and birds are often faced by opposing requirements for agile and stable flight. Here, we explore the interplay between aerodynamic effort, maneuverability, and stability in a model system that consists of a $\Lambda$-shaped flyer…
Ocean sampling for highly temporal phenomena, such as harmful algal blooms, necessitates a vehicle capable of fast aerial travel interspersed with an aquatic means of acquiring in-situ measurements. Vehicle platforms with this capability…
Bird-sized flapping-wing robots offer significant potential for agile flight in complex environments, but achieving agile and robust trajectory tracking remains a challenge due to the complex aerodynamics and highly nonlinear dynamics…
Collective locomotion of swimming and flying animals is fascinating in terms of individual-level fluid mechanics and group-level structure and dynamics. Here we bridge and relate these scales through a model of formation flight that views…
Birds have a remarkable ability to perform complex maneuvers at post-stall angles of attack. The passive deployment of self-actuating covert feathers in response to unsteady flow separation while performing such maneuvers provides a passive…
The 3D flight control of a flapping wing robot is a very challenging problem. The robot stabilizes and controls its pose through the aerodynamic forces acting on the wing membrane which has complex dynamics and it is difficult to develop a…
Achieving both agile maneuverability and high energy efficiency in aerial robots, particularly in dynamic wind environments, remains challenging. Conventional thruster-powered systems offer agility but suffer from high energy consumption,…
This study presents a comprehensive mathematical framework for modeling the flight dynamics of a six-degree-of-freedom fixed-wing aircraft as a rigid body with three control surfaces: rudder, elevators, and ailerons. The framework consists…
This research investigates the three-dimensional effects of flow around a pair of flapping wings undergoing clap-and-fling interactions through harmonic in-plane motions combining pitching, heaving, and deviation. Both wings mirror each…
We present a numerical study to characterize nonlinear unsteady aeroelastic interactions of two-dimensional flexible wings at high angles of attack. The coupled fluid-flexible wing system is solved by a body-fitted variational aeroelastic…
Aerial insects exhibit highly agile maneuvers such as sharp braking, saccades, and body flips under disturbance. In contrast, insect-scale aerial robots are limited to tracking non-aggressive trajectories with small body acceleration. This…
Collective patterns of motion emerge across biological taxa: insects swarm, fish school, and birds flock. In particular, large migratory birds form strikingly ordered V-shaped formations, which experiments and direct numerical simulations…
This paper proposes a novel method for prevention of the increasing oscillation of an aircraft wing under the flexural torsion flutter. The paper introduces the novel multi-agent method for control of an aircraft wing, assuming that the…
Fluid dynamics, and flight in particular, is a domain where organisms challenge our understanding of its physics. Integrating the current knowledge of animal flight, we propose to revisit the use of live animals to study physical phenomena.…
Insects and hummingbirds exhibit extraordinary flight capabilities and can simultaneously master seemingly conflicting goals: stable hovering and aggressive maneuvering, unmatched by small scale man-made vehicles. Flapping Wing Micro Air…