Recent progress in flapping wing aerodynamics and aeroelasticity

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) have the potential to revolutionize our sensing and information gathering capabilities in areas such as environmental monitoring and homeland security. Flapping wings with suitable wing kinematics, wing shapes, and flexible structures can enhance lift as well as thrust by exploiting large-scale vortical flow structures under various conditions. However, the scaling invariance of both fluid dynamics and structural dynamics as the size changes is fundamentally difficult. The focus of this review is to assess the recent progress in flapping wing aerodynamics and aeroelasticity. It is realized that a variation of the Reynolds number (wing sizing, flapping frequency, etc.) leads to a change in the leading edge vortex (LEV) and spanwise flow structures, which impacts the aerodynamic force generation. While in classical stationary wing theory, the tip vortices (TiVs) are seen as wasted energy, in flapping flight, they can interact with the LEV to enhance lift without increasing the power requirements. Surrogate modeling techniques can assess the aerodynamic outcomes between two- and three-dimensional wing. The combined effect of the TiVs, the LEV, and jet can improve the aerodynamics of a flapping wing. Regarding aeroelasticity, chordwise flexibility in the forward flight can substantially adjust the projected area normal to the flight trajectory via shape deformation, hence redistributing thrust and lift. Spanwise flexibility in the forward flight creates shape deformation from the wing root to the wing tip resulting in varied phase shift and effective angle of attack distribution along the wing span. Numerous open issues in flapping wing aerodynamics are highlighted.     

The thrust and lift of an ornithopter's membrane wings with simple flapping motion

Human beings flying with the help of aircrafts of various kinds have been able to fly for about one century. Although the flapping wings of animals served as an inspiration to pioneers of human flight, we don't really understand how they work. In this study, we employ the concept of four-bar linkage to design a flapping mechanism which simulates a flapping motion of a bird. Wind tunnel tests were performed to measure the lift and thrust of the mechanical membrane flapping wing under different frequency, speed, and angle of attack. It is observed that the flexibility of the wing structure will affect the thrust and lift force due to its deformation at high flapping frequency. The lift force will increase with the increase of the flapping frequency under the corresponding flying speed. For the same flapping frequency, the flying speed can be increased by decrease of the angle of attack with the trade of loosing some lift force. An angle of attack is necessary in a simple flapping motion in order to derive a lift force. The flapping motion generates the thrust to acquire the flying speed. The flying speed and angle of attack combine to generate the lift force for flying.     

扑翼的变刚度设计及其对升力和推力的影响

为提高扑翼飞行器的升力和推力以提高其飞行性能,运用生物扑翼的仿生原理,研究扑翼飞行器的扑翼升力和扑翼推力随扑翼刚度变化的机理。借鉴"变刚度关节机构和平面转动冗余并联机构通过调节张力改变刚度"这一机构学原理,运用变刚度关节机构相互串联实现扑翼在扑动方向上变刚度,同时运用平面转动冗余并联机构实现扑翼在扭转方向上变刚度。建立扑翼的扑动关节刚度和扭转机构刚度随预张力变化的模型,并通过实验和仿真验证扑翼扑动关节刚度和扭转机构刚度随预张力的变化。研究扑翼的升力和推力与扑翼刚度之间的关系,验证了通过调节扑翼刚度匹配其扑动频率可以提高扑翼的升力和推力。     

Aerodynamic performance of owl-like airfoil undergoing bio-inspired flapping kinematics

Natural flyers have extraordinary flight skills and their prominent aerodynamic performance has attracted a lot of attention. However, the aerodynamic mechanism of birds' flapping wing kinematics still lacks in-depth understanding. In this paper, the aerodynamic performance of owl-like airfoil undergoing bio-inspired flapping kinematics extracted from a free-flying owl wing has been numerically investigated. The overset mesh technique is used to deal with the large range movements of flapping airfoils. The bio-inspired kinematics consist of plunging and pitching movement. A pure sinusoidal motion and a defined motion composed of plunging of sinusoidal motion and pitching of the bio-inspired kinematics are selected for comparison. The other two NACA airfoils are also selected to figure out the advantages of the owl-like airfoil. It is found that the cambered owl-like airfoil can enhance lift during the downstroke. The bio-inspired kinematics have an obvious advantage in lift generation with a presence of higher peak lift and positive lift over a wider proportion of the flapping cycle. Meanwhile, the bio-inspired motion is more economical for a lower power consumption compared with the sinusoidal motion. The sinusoidal flapping motion is better for thrust generation for a higher peak thrust value in both upstroke and downstroke, while the bio-inspired kinematics mainly generate thrust during the downstroke but produce more drag during the upstroke. The defined motion has similar lift performance with the bio-inspired kinematics, while it consumes more energy and generates less thrust. The unsteady flow field around airfoils is also analyzed to explain the corresponding phenomenon. The research in this paper is helpful to understand the flight mechanism of birds and to design a micro air vehicle with higher performance.     

Unsteady aerodynamics and flow control for flapping wing flyers

The creation of micro air vehicles (MAVs) of the same general sizes and weight as natural fliers has spawned renewed interest in flapping wing flight. With a wingspan of approximately 15 cm and a flight speed of a few meters per second, MAVs experience the same low Reynolds number (10⁴–10⁵) flight conditions as their biological counterparts. In this flow regime, rigid fixed wings drop dramatically in aerodynamic performance while flexible flapping wings gain efficacy and are the preferred propulsion method for small natural fliers. Researchers have long realized that steady-state aerodynamics does not properly capture the physical phenomena or forces present in flapping flight at this scale. Hence, unsteady flow mechanisms must dominate this regime. Furthermore, due to the low flight speeds, any disturbance such as gusts or wind will dramatically change the aerodynamic conditions around the MAV. In response, a suitable feedback control system and actuation technology must be developed so that the wing can maintain its aerodynamic efficiency in this extremely dynamic situation; one where the unsteady separated flow field and wing structure are tightly coupled and interact nonlinearly. For instance, birds and bats control their flexible wings with muscle tissue to successfully deal with rapid changes in the flow environment. Drawing from their example, perhaps MAVs can use lightweight actuators in conjunction with adaptive feedback control to shape the wing and achieve active flow control. This article first reviews the scaling laws and unsteady flow regime constraining both biological and man-made fliers. Then a summary of vortex dominated unsteady aerodynamics follows. Next, aeroelastic coupling and its effect on lift and thrust are discussed. Afterwards, flow control strategies found in nature and devised by man to deal with separated flows are examined. Recent work is also presented in using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) actuators and angular speed variation to achieve active flow control for MAVs. Finally, an explanation for aerodynamic gains seen in flexible versus rigid membrane wings, derived from an unsteady three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model with an integrated distributed control algorithm, is presented.     

主动变形扑翼飞行器的设计和风洞测力试验研究

主动变形扑翼可以模仿鸟翼飞行时的复杂运动。为了了解主动变形扑翼飞行器的气动特性,在研究鸟类骨骼结构和翅膀及尾翼运动规律的基础上,设计并制造了一种基于机器人技术的主动变形扑翼飞行器;给出了主动变形扑翼飞行器的机构运动规律函数,并设计出机构运动控制系统;在低速风洞中对此飞行器进行了一系列测力试验,研究了主动变形扑翼的升力、推力特性,以及风速、扑动频率、扑动幅度、伸展相位等参数对升力和推力的影响,并与常规扑翼进行了对比分析。试验结果表明,较之常规扑翼,主动变形扑翼可以显著增加升力和增强对不同飞行状态的适应能力。     

Optimal thickness distributions of aeroelastic flapping shells

The severe weight limitations of flapping wing micro air vehicles necessitates the use of thin flexible wings, which in turn requires an aeroelastic modeling tool for proper numerical characterization. Furthermore, due to the unconventional nature of these vehicles, wing design guidelines for thrust and/or power considerations are not generally available; numerical design optimization then becomes a valuable tool. This work couples a nonlinear shell model to an unsteady vortex lattice solver, and then computes analytical design gradients: the derivative of aerodynamic force/power quantities with respect to a large vector of thickness variables. Gradient-based optimization is then used to locate the wing structure that maximizes the thrust, or minimizes the power under a thrust constraint, for a variety of shell boundary conditions. Changes in the topological features of the optimal wing thicknesses highlight important aeroelastic interactions that can be exploited for efficient flapping wings.     

多段柔性变体扑翼飞行器设计

多段柔性变体扑翼模仿海鸥翅膀的复杂运动.观察海鸥翅膀的运动周期,设计了包含慢频率扑动、展向折弯、弦向扭转和结构柔性变形的扑翼模型,并应用准定常方法计算气动力,为该扑翼飞行器设计提供依据.在CATIA和3DMAX中设计多段柔性变体扑翼机的三维模型和运动模拟,制作样机进行飞行试验,研究其平飞、爬升、偏航等飞行姿态,结果表明升力和推力与数值计算结果吻合.相较于原有扑翼飞行器,多段柔性变体扑翼飞行器可以慢频率扑动飞行,调整扑翼形状.      

可差动扭转扑翼飞行器的设计和风洞试验研究

常规的仿鸟扑翼飞行器在飞行时机翼只是单纯地上下扑动。为提高扑翼飞行器横航向和航迹控制的品质,设计了一种机翼在扑动的同时可差动扭转的仿鸟扑翼飞行器;在低速风洞中对其进行了一系列测力试验,研究了可差动扭转扑翼飞行器的升力、推力特性,以及机翼差动扭转角、扑动频率、风速、机翼柔性对滚转力矩系数的影响;对设计的扑翼飞行器做了飞行试验,验证了设计的可行性,并与常规扑翼飞行器作了对比,试验结果表明：可差动扭转扑翼可以用于扑翼飞行器的横向控制,并且可以提高其抗风能力和航迹控制精度。     

Lift performance enhancement for flapping airfoils by considering surging motion

The flapping motion has a great impact on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings. In this paper, a surging motion is added to an airfoil performing pitching-plunging combined motion to figure out how it influences the lift performance and flow pattern of flapping airfoils. Firstly, the numerical methods are validated by a NACA0012 airfoil pitching case and a NACA0012 airfoil plunging case. Then, the E377m airfoil which has typical geometric characteristics of the bird-like airfoil is selected as the calculation model to study how phase differences φ₁ between surging motion and plunging motion affect the aerodynamic performance of flapping airfoils. The results show that the airfoil with surging motion has comprehensively better lift performance and thrust performance than the airfoil without surging motion when 15°< φ₁ < 90°. It is demonstrated that surging motion has a powerful ability to improve the aerodynamic performance of flapping airfoil by adjusting φ₁. Finally, to further explore how flapping airfoil improves lift performance by considering surging motion, the flapping motions of E377m airfoil with the highest lift coefficient and lift efficiency are obtained through trajectory optimization. The surging motion is removed in the highest lift case and highest lift efficiency case respectively, and the mechanism that surging motion adjusts the aerodynamic force is analyzed in detail by comparing the vortex structure and kinematic parameters. The results of this paper help reveal the aerodynamic mechanism of bird flight and guide the design of Flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (FMAV).     

考虑弹性转轴的扑翼三维气动数值计算

通过求解雷诺平均Navier-Stokes方程,研究了同时具有扑动和俯仰运动的三维扑翼气动特性.为了模拟扑翼的弹性特性,在扑翼俯仰轴处设计了扭簧.研究了扑翼平面形状、俯仰弹性轴与质心的相对位置、俯仰刚度变化等参数的影响.结果表明:俯仰角相对扑动角有一个大的相位超前量,且刚度系数越大该超前量越大;考虑了俯仰弹性特征后,计...     

Flapping and flexible wings for biological and micro air vehicles

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) with wing spans of 15 cm or less, and flight speed of 30–60 kph are of interest for military and civilian applications. There are two prominent features of MAV flight: (i) low Reynolds number (10⁴–10⁵), resulting in unfavorable aerodynamic conditions to support controlled flight, and (ii) small physical dimensions, resulting in certain favorable scaling characteristics including structural strength, reduced stall speed, and low inertia. Based on observations of biological flight vehicles, it appears that wing motion and flexible airfoils are two key attributes for flight at low Reynolds number. The small size of MAVs corresponds in nature to small birds, which do not glide like large birds, but instead flap with considerable change of wing shape during a single flapping cycle. With flapping and flexible wings, birds overcome the deteriorating aerodynamic performance under steady flow conditions by employing unsteady mechanisms. In this article, we review both biological and aeronautical literatures to present salient features relevant to MAVs. We first summarize scaling laws of biological and micro air vehicles involving wing span, wing loading, vehicle mass, cruising speed, flapping frequency, and power. Next we discuss kinematics of flapping wings and aerodynamic models for analyzing lift, drag and power. Then we present issues related to low Reynolds number flows and airfoil shape selection. Recent work on flexible structures capable of adjusting the airfoil shape in response to freestream variations is also discussed.     

Nonlinear dynamics of a flapping rotary wing: Modeling and optimal wing kinematic analysis

The analysis of the passive rotation feature of a micro Flapping Rotary Wing(FRW)applicable for Micro Air Vehicle(MAV) design is presented in this paper. The dynamics of the wing and its influence on aerodynamic performance of FRW is studied at low Reynolds number(~10~3).The FRW is modeled as a simplified system of three rigid bodies: a rotary base with two flapping wings. The multibody dynamic theory is employed to derive the motion equations for FRW. A quasi-steady aerodynamic model is utilized for the calculation of the aerodynamic forces and moments. The dynamic motion process and the effects of the kinematics of wings on the dynamic rotational equilibrium of FWR and the aerodynamic performances are studied. The results show that the passive rotation motion of the wings is a continuous dynamic process which converges into an equilibrium rotary velocity due to the interaction between aerodynamic thrust, drag force and wing inertia. This causes a unique dynamic time-lag phenomena of lift generation for FRW, unlike the normal flapping wing flight vehicle driven by its own motor to actively rotate its wings. The analysis also shows that in order to acquire a high positive lift generation with high power efficiency and small dynamic time-lag, a relative high mid-up stroke angle within 7–15° and low mid-down stroke angle within -40° to -35° are necessary. The results provide a quantified guidance for design option of FRW together with the optimal kinematics of motion according to flight performance requirement.     

微型扑翼飞行器扑翼/尾翼气动干扰的数值研究

以二维刚性约束条件下的微型扑翼飞行器模型为研究对象,在动网格技术基础上,应用非定常数值分析手段对比分析了单翼/纵列翼布局的气动性能,深入研究了纵列翼缩减频率、扑翼—尾翼无量纲水平间距、来流攻角对其气动性能的影响.结果表明:①纵列翼尾翼对扑翼产生正效应干扰,相对于单翼布局,扑翼—尾翼无量纲水平间距为0.5倍翼型弦长时的纵列翼布局的推力系数和推进效率分别增加28.7%和5.7%;②缩减频率是影响推力的关键参数,随着缩减频率的增加,脱落涡的强度增加,推力系数增大.对于单翼、纵列翼两种布局模式,当缩减频率在1.0附近时推进效率达到最优;③对于纵列翼布局,在扑翼—尾翼无量纲水平间距为1.1倍翼型弦长时推进效率达到峰值;④在0°~20°来流攻角变化范围内,随着来流攻角的增加,升力系数增加,推力系数减小,当来流攻角大于9°时,两种布局的推力均为负值.      

一种仿生扑翼飞行器的设计及动力学分析

为了提高仿生扑翼飞行器设计水平,弄清仿生扑翼飞行器的动力学特性、改善其飞行性能,设计了一种折展翼仿鸟扑动飞行样机,并对其动力学特性进行了分析。通过仿生方式设计了基于曲柄连杆的折展扑动机构,建立了扑翼机构的运动学模型,得到了相关运动学参数,并采用拉格朗日方法,推导出扑翼扑动时的动力学模型。基于条带方法对该扑翼的气动力、气动力矩载荷进行估算,分析了折展扑翼非对称扑动时翼翅气动力矩变化规律,结果表明:与一般直扑翼相比,折展翼在上扑阶段受到更小的阻力,因而扑翼扑动过程中能够获得更大的升力。基于ADAMS软件包,对扑动机构关键铰接位置的力学特性进行分析,为优化扑动机构、提高其结构强度提供重要参考。      

Review on ultra-lightweight flapping-wing nano air vehicles:Artificial muscles,flight control mechanism,and biomimetic wings

Flying insects are capable of flapping their wings to provide the required power and control forces for flight. A coordinated organizational system including muscles, wings, and control architecture plays a significant role, which provides the sources of inspiration for designing flapping-wing vehicles. In recent years, due to the development of micro-and meso-scale manufacturing technologies, advances in components technologies have directly led to a progress of smaller Flapping-Wing Nano Air V...     

Flight control of a large-scale flapping-wing flying robotic bird:System development and flight experiment

Large-scale flapping-wing flying robotic birds have huge application potential in outdoor tasks, such as military reconnaissance, environment exploring, disaster rescue and so on. In this paper, a multiple modes flight control method and system are proposed for a large-scale robotic bird which has 2.3 m wingspan and 650 g mass. Different from small flapping wing aerial vehicle,the mass of its wings cannot be neglected and the flapping frequency are much lower. Therefore, the influence of transie...     

Aerodynamic modelling of insect-like flapping flight for micro air vehicles

Insect-like flapping flight offers a power-efficient and highly manoeuvrable basis for a micro air vehicle capable of indoor flight. The development of such a vehicle requires a careful wing aerodynamic design. This is particularly true since the flapping wings will be responsible for lift, propulsion and manoeuvres, all at the same time. It sets the requirement for an aerodynamic tool that will enable study of the parametric design space and converge on one (or more) preferred configurations. In this respect, aerodynamic modelling approaches are the most attractive, principally due to their ability to iterate rapidly through various design configurations. In this article, we review the main approaches found in the literature, categorising them into steady-state, quasi-steady, semi-empirical and fully unsteady methods. The unsteady aerodynamic model of Ansari et al. seems to be the most satisfactory to date and is considered in some detail. Finally, avenues for further research in this field are suggested.     

仿蜻蜓扑动机构改进及气动力/力矩测量

为进一步提高扑翼微型飞行器的机动性能,对前期提出的可移动铰链曲柄滑块扑动机构进行了改进和小型化。该机构运动学表明:移动铰链后两侧翅膀扑动幅值差值从之前的21.3°增大到51.2°,同时平均扑动幅值降到0°。研制了可快速模块化组装的碳纤维板仿蜻蜓扑翼样机。样机测量和试飞实验表明,通过调节扑动频率可以明显改变样机的升力和推力,有效实现飞行器的快速爬升机动飞行。在较大扑动频率移动铰链可以产生足够的偏航力矩和滚转力矩用于转弯等机动飞行。      

扑翼升力特性的非定常涡格法计算研究

针对西北工业大学航空学院微型飞行器研究室研制的PY-1型扑翼机,建立了扑翼的运动模型,并采用非定常涡格法模拟了该扑翼的升力特性,分析了迎角、飞行速度对升力特性的影响。计算结果与实际飞行试验吻合,验证了非定常涡格法模拟扑翼非定常气动特性的正确性和有效性。研究结果可为扑翼机的气动设计提供参考。