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Thrust Performance of Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicles

K. Yoshida, H. Liu

Abstract


This paper presents a prototype flapping-wing Micro air vehicle (MAV) with devices such as a video camera and/or acceleration sensors for surveillance and environmental monitoring. The MAV has a weight to be more than 8 gf in toto and is about 2.7 times larger than that of conventional flapping wing MAVs. We investigated the effect of the wing size, the flapping frequency and the wing structure, such as wingspan, leading edge stiffness and wing film stiffness, on the aerodynamic force generation. Based on these experimental results, we have successfully developed a MAV with the optimized wing structure and the motor. It has been confirmed that the MAV can fly with a weight of 8.5 gf including payload and hence exhibits the potential to fly with a video camera on-board.

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21535%2FProICIUS.2011.v7.368

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