Abstract
This paper describes the evaluation of aerodynamic performance of insect-inspired flapping wings for MAVs design. The insect-inspired wings are made of stiff leading edges and flexible membranes so as to employ the passive wing deformations due to inertial and aerodynamic forces in terms of feathering and camber. In this study, the effect of wing stiffness on the aerodynamic performance of flapping micro air vehicle is investigated. The wing stiffness is realized by attaching ribs on the wing surface and tape on the trailing edge of the wings. The wings are attached to a prototype MAV, which is designed to employ the "clap and fling" mechanism with four wings cross between. The thrust force on the flapping wings is further measured to evaluate the aerodynamic performance of the MAV. The experimental results indicate that the wing stiffness to achieve the maximum thrust depends on the flapping frequency. When the flapping frequency is high, the thrust force increase with the wing stiffness. In experimental range of this study, the wings that have higher stiffness showed high performance at more than 18Hz. This result shows that the stiffness of flapping wing is an important factor for the design of MAV.
