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Flow Control Using Flapping Wings for an Efficient Low-Speed Micro-Air Vehicle

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Flying Insects and Robots

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Abstract

A review is given of the research studies which led to the development of a flapping-wing propelled micro air vehicle which uses two oscillating wings in a biplane arrangement for propulsion and a fixed wing for lift generation. Computational and experimental studies are described which were conducted to obtain quantitative information about the thrust and propulsive efficiency offered by this choice. They included inviscid incompressible panel code as well as viscous Navier-Stokes computations, flow visualizations and flow measurements in water and wind tunnels as well as direct thrust measurements. It is shown that the placement of the fixed wing upstream but closely coupled to the two oscillating wings delays flow separation and therefore offers special advantages for flight operations at the low Reynolds numbers encountered by micro air vehicles.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the support received from Spiro Lekoudis of the Office of Naval Research, with project monitors Peter Majumdar and Edwin Rood, and from Richard Foch, head of the Vehicle Research Section of the Naval Research Laboratory, with project monitors Kevin Ailinger, Jill Dahlburg, and James Kellogg.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA

    Kevin  D. Jones & Max  F. Platzer

Authors
  1. Kevin  D. Jones
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  2. Max  F. Platzer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin  D. Jones .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland

    Dario Floreano

  2. Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland

    Jean-Christophe Zufferey

  3. Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Australia

    Mandyam V. Srinivasan

  4. Dept. Zoology, University Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, United Kingdom

    Charlie Ellington

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Jones, K.D., Platzer, M.F. (2009). Flow Control Using Flapping Wings for an Efficient Low-Speed Micro-Air Vehicle. In: Floreano, D., Zufferey, JC., Srinivasan, M., Ellington, C. (eds) Flying Insects and Robots. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89393-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-89393-6_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-89392-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-89393-6

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