Systems design of an insectoid propulsion system

Abstract

A flapping wing micro aerial vehicle (MAV) is a small unmanned vehicle inspired by insects and or birds. These have become a trending area of research and development within the MAV community due to their potential of unprecedented flight capabilities. Most notable of such capabilities being the efficient hovering, quick change of direction and tiny weight and size associated with flying insects. However, the design imposes mechanical challenges due to its size and the dynamics of the flapping wing design. Here we show that by incorporating a systems design approach the number of promising designs of a MAV propulsion system can be limited,and a general direction of further improvement can be found. Tests showed that maximum power for medium to large sized, fruit fly inspired, wings on the insectoid propulsion system were achieved with a soft spring and lower frequency, while smaller wings produced most power when coupled with a stiffer spring and higher frequency. Our result show how a complex multi-discipline problem can be broken down into smaller parts and solved separately while still improving the system as a whole. Using this method the weight of the body of the original prototype was decrease by 84.5% to 3.72 g and the wing’s weight was decreased by 48% to 1.32 g. Further the generated thrust from the propulsion system was increased to 1.39 g under continuous operation at 10 V and reaching 4.03 g of thrust under temporary operation at 30 V. We anticipate the findings in this report will act as a starting point for further improvements of the design of flapping wing MAV propulsion systems.