VIBRATION ANALYSIS OF FLAPPING WINGS BASED ON AVIAN FLIGHT (ORNITHOPTER)

Abstract

The growing interest in unmanned aircraft, especially for surveillance in constrained areas, has triggered much research in the area of micro air vehicles (MAVs). Sensors and actuators are becoming smaller and smarter, enabling new aircraft designs. MAVs offer the potential to fly reconnaissance missions in constrained areas, which are difficult for larger aircraft to accomplish. Their small size allows them to navigate in tight corners at low speeds and blend in with their surroundings. The opportunity exists to build low cost systems that can hover or take off in short distances, generate less noise, and be quickly deployed in the field. Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (FMAV) based on avian flight is called ‘Ornithopter’ and that based on insect flight is known as ‘Entomopter’. This research is restricted to Ornithopters only. The kinematics of real birds are difficult to be mimicked because of extreme complexities involved and weight limitation of an ornithopter. Simple flapping of wings with suitably chosen parameters, and overall light weight, can produce required lift and thrust. Thus most of the successful ornithopters are designed only with flapping mechanism having flexible membrane wings. The flexibility of the wings causes passive pitching movement during flapping which improves the performance. Flapping frequency, flapping amplitude, incidence angle, flexibility of wings and their geometry are the important design parameters for an ornithopter.