Related papers: A minimal wake-vortex model explains formation fli…
In this paper, we take an initial and novel step toward characterizing the physics of the hovering phenomenon in flapping insects and hummingbirds as a new class of extremum seeking (ES) feedback systems. By characterizing hovering flight…
We present a design of a bird-inspired morphing wing aircraft, including bionic research, modeling, simulation and flight experiments. Inspired by birds and activated by a planar linkage, our proposed aircraft has three key states: gliding,…
Tried-and-true flapping wing robot simulation is essential in developing flapping wing mechanisms and algorithms. This paper presents a novel application-oriented flapping wing platform, highly compatible with various mechanical designs and…
Insects excel in trajectory and attitude handling during flight, yet the specific kinematic behaviours they use for maintaining stability in air disturbances are not fully understood. This study investigates the adaptive strategies of…
Drawing inspiration from the adaptive wing shape of birds in flight, this study introduces a bio-inspired concept for shape adaptation utilizing bend-twist coupling (BTC) in composite laminates. The primary aim of the design optimization is…
In systems control, the dynamics of a system are governed by modulating its inputs to achieve a desired outcome. For example, to control the thrust of a quad-copter propeller the controller modulates its rotation rate, relying on a…
Stability of flapping flight, a natural requirement for flying insects, is one of the major challenges for designing micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). To better understand how a flying insect could stabilize itself during hover, we have…
Flight is a complicated task at small scales in part due to the ubiquitous unsteady air which contains it. Flying organisms deal with these difficulties using active and passive control mechanisms to steer their body motion. Body attitudes…
In this paper, we present a model describing the collective motion of birds. The model introduces spontaneous changes in direction which are initialized by few agents, here referred as leaders, whose influence act on their nearest…
Tiny flying insects of body lengths under 2 mm use the `clap-and-fling' mechanism with bristled wings for lift augmentation and drag reduction at chord-based Reynolds number ($Re$) on $\mathcal{O}$(10). We examine wing-wing interaction of…
Interactions among neighboring birds in a flock cause an alignment of their flight directions. We show that the minimally structured (maximum entropy) model consistent with these local correlations correctly predicts the propagation of…
Approximately half of the existing winged-insect species are of very small size (wing length about 0.3-4 mm); they are referred to as miniature insects. Yet until recently, much of what we know about the mechanics of insect flight was…
The present work is concerned with the shape optimization of flapping wings in forward flight. The analysis is performed by combining a gradient-based optimizer with the unsteady vortex lattice method (UVLM). We describe the UVLM…
In this work, we have performed numerical simulations of the flapping motion of a rectangular wing in a three-dimensional flow field using the discrete vortex method (DVM). The DVM method is computationally more convenient because it does…
Consider a flock of birds that fly interacting between them. The interactions are modelled through a hierarchical system in which each bird, at each time step, adjusts its own velocity according to his past velocity and a weighted mean of…
Flying insects are thought to achieve energy-efficient flapping flight by storing and releasing elastic energy in their muscles, tendons, and thorax. However, flight systems consisting elastic elements coupled to nonlinear, unsteady…
We investigate how localized inhomogeneity affects the geometry and stability of migratory bird formations. We use a lifting-line model with a horseshoe-vortex representation to describe the longitudinal dynamics of aerodynamic…
The correlated motion of flocks is an instance of global order emerging from local interactions. An essential difference with analogous ferromagnetic systems is that flocks are active: animals move relative to each other, dynamically…
Collective motion is abundant in nature, producing a vast amount of phenomena which have been studied in recent years, including the landing of flocks of birds. We investigate the collective decision making scenario where a flock of birds…
Inspired by flight characteristics captured from live Monarch butterflies, an optimal control problem is presented while accounting the effects of low-frequency flapping and abdomen undulation. A flapping-wing aerial vehicle is modeled as…