Date of Award

3-11-2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

First Advisor

Richard G. Cobb, PhD.

Abstract

While there have been great advances in the area of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles (FWMAV), prototype parts have been constructed with the objective of scientific discovery and basic research. There has been little effort to make parts that could be consistently and repeatedly manufactured. Until recently, there has been little, if any, focus on methods that could be used and verified by subsequent researchers. It is herein proposed that Microelectromechanical System fabrication methods will provide a fast, cheap, and highly repeatable manufacturing method for the FWMAV wings. The wings manufactured to demonstrate this process, bio-inspired by the Manduca Sexta, were patterned and manufactured from titanium. The process took a relatively short amount of time: three and a half hours from start to finish. Multiple wings were fabricated as a batch during this time. A repeatable method for producing camber in the wing and mounting a membrane on the titanium structure is also presented. These processes will allow parametric testing of FWMAV wings. These wings will be exactly the same, except for specific changes made by the designer, so wing iterations can be compared and studied precisely. The best possible FWMAV wing can be discovered and exactly recreated in this manner. This process may also be easily adapted to mass manufacture of FWMAV wings in industry.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GAE-ENY-11-M06

DTIC Accession Number

ADA539250

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