Passive Rotation Joint Design Considerations for Lift and Thrust Generation for a Biomimetic Flapping Wing

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-1-2014

Abstract

Maximizing the available lift and thrust force is important for designing efficient flapping wing micro air vehicles. Research to date showed the passive rotation joint between the wing and four-bar linkage is an important design aspect. Two key hinge parameters are the angle of attack stop and passive rotation joint stiffness. In this work these design parameters were independently varied. Their impact on lift and thrust force generation, and the ratio of the first and second system resonance frequencies were measured and compared through experiments utilizing prototype hardware of varying design. The prototype hardware and flapping wing controller is based on previous work, focused on using biomimetic wings combined with a design that only requires two piezoelectric actuators, and will be briefly reviewed. The angle of attack stops tested were 30°, 40°, 45°, 50°, and 60°. Five different passive rotation joints were tested of varying stiffness. Optimal angle of attack stops and passive rotation joint designs were found from the experimental results and combined into a best design, which was tested and compared to the optimal results from the independent designs. Results show that while individual selection of angle stop and passive rotation joint stiffness can be optimized, the intersection between the two precludes simply choosing the best of both as the best combined.

Comments

The "Link to Full Text" on this page loads the open access article hosted at Sage Publications.

DOI

10.1260/1756-8293.6.3.141

Source Publication

International Journal of Micro Air Vehicles

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