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Dynamic Behaviors of Butterfly Wing and Their Application to Small Flapping Robot

M. Fuchiwaki, T. Imura, K. Tanaka

Abstract


In recent years, Micro-Air-Vehicles and micro-flight robot that mimic the flight mechanisms of insects have been attracting significant attention. Many researchers have been tried to develop these robots. However, they have not yet reached a practical application. We tried to develop the small flapping robot, like the butterfly. In order to develop it, we clarified dynamic behaviors of a butterfly wing, such as flapping angle, lead-lag angle and feathering angle. Especially, the butterfly performs flapping by greatly changing feathering angles and it twists the vein in the leading edge in the reverse direction in the body area and at the wing tip. Based on these results, we developed the small flapping robot and it has two wings and does not have the tail wing. Its wing chord length, span length and overall weight were 240 [mm], 80 [mm] and 1.9g, respectively. The small flapping robot flied stably for 20 minutes.

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21535%2FProICIUS.2010.v6.453

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