Abstract
This objective of this paper is to highlight future directions for engineers and biologists working towards unmanned air systems that are inspired by animal models. Flying animals are an ideal source of inspiration for small aerial devices since they face the same physical challenges in order to take to the air, navigate and remain stable in turbulent conditions. I will focus on insect flight, and how their wing morphology and flapping kinematics interact with the air to generate aerodynamic force. The identification of measures of success is crucial in order to convert acquired data into a sound basis for vehicle design. These measures will vary according to the performance specification of the vehicle in question but might include aerodynamic efficiency, or an ability to generate the very large peak forces needed for high-acceleration, rapidly maneuvering flight. If we are to define general trends in morphology and kinematics that are associated with particular flight modes then we should show evidence of convergent evolution showing those trends rather than simply mimicking a model species that is arbitrarily judged to be successful. The next generation of insect flight experiments will be necessarily interdisciplinary, combining aerodynamic measurements with wing kinematic analysis in experimental protocols that provoke maneuvering flight by multimodal sensory stimulation. Concurrently, there will be a corresponding stream of physical and computational modelling that examines large kinematic and morphological parameter sweeps in an effort to find global and local optima.
