Attitude control of the bird-inspired aerial robot with wind sensors

Abstract

It has been reported that flying organisms like birds and insects have wind-sensing organs on their body surfaces that help them predict and control their body posture before being affected by wind gusts. This study developed a wind sensor that is inspired from the deflection of birds feathers due to the effect of wind during flight. The bird-inspired wind sensor is composed of a rectangular film with a magnet and reacts with a Hall sensor in the wing to obtain a voltage variation depending on the deflection. The study evaluated the characteristics of the wind sensor on a flying robot in a wind tunnel. The results demonstrated that the wind sensor value fluctuates just prior to stall, indicating that detecting stalls prior to attitude changes by wind disturbances may lead to improved flight stability.