Accurate position control of a flapping-wing robot enabling free-flight flow visualisation in a wind tunnel

Download

index.pdf

Date

2019-10-02

Author

Karasek, Matej
Perçin, Mustafa
Cunis, Torbjorn
van Oudheusden, Bas W.
De Wagter, Christophe
Remes, Bart D. W.
de Croon, Guido C. H. E.

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

221
views

155
downloads

Flow visualisations are essential to better understand the unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wing flight. The issues inherent to animal experiments, such as poor controllability and unnatural flapping when tethered, can be avoided by using robotic flyers that promise for a more systematic and repeatable methodology. Here, we present a new flapping-wing micro air vehicle (FWMAV)-specific control approach that, by employing an external motion tracking system, achieved autonomous wind tunnel flight with a maximum root-mean-square position error of 28 mm at low speeds (0.8-1.2 m/s) and 75 mm at high speeds (2-2.4 m/s). This allowed the first free flight flow visualisation experiments to be conducted with an FWMAV. Time-resolved stereoscopic particle image velocimetry was used to reconstruct the three-dimensional flow patterns of the FWMAV wake. A good qualitative match was found in comparison to a tethered configuration at similar conditions, suggesting that the obtained free-flight measurements are reliable and meaningful.

Subject Keywords

Aerospace Engineering

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/40732

Journal

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MICRO AIR VEHICLES

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/1756829319833683

Collections

Department of Aerospace Engineering, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Investigation of rotor wake interactions in helicopters using 3d unsteady free vortex wake methodology Yemenici, Öznur; Uzol, Oğuz; Department of Aerospace Engineering (2010) This thesis focuses on developing and examining the capabilities of a new in-house aerodynamic analysis tool, AeroSIM+, and investigating rotor-rotor aerodynamic interactions for two helicopters, one behind the other in forward flight. AeroSIM+ is a 3-D unsteady vortex panel method potential flow solver based on a free vortex wake methodology. Validation of the results with the experimental data is performed using the Caradonna-Tung hovering rotor test case. AeroSIM+ code is improved for forward flight cond...
Mathematical model development of the anti torque system of a notar helicopter Bakır, Hüseyin Murat; Yavrucuk, İlkay; Department of Aerospace Engineering (2008) The anti-torque mechanism of a NOTAR helicopter is a complex system including vertical tail and pressurized tail boom which provides air ejection used for both circulation control around the boom and creating directed jet air at the end of the boom. This thesis targets the modeling of this mechanism and integrating it to a helicopter simulation model. Flight tests are performed on the MD 600N helicopter to verify the results. Finally, the simulation is compared with flight test data.
Design and analysis of a mode-switching micro unmanned aerial vehicle Cakici, Ferit; Leblebicioğlu, Mehmet Kemal (SAGE Publications, 2016-12-01) In this study, design and analysis of a mode-switching vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with level flight capability is considered. The design of the platform includes both multirotor and fixed-wing (FW) conventional airplane structures; therefore named as VTOL-FW. The aircraft is modeled using aerodynamical principles including post-stall conditions. Trim conditions are obtained by solving constrained optimization problems. Linear analysis techniques are utilized for trim ...
Optimization of Flapping Motion Parameters for Two Airfoils in a Biplane Configuration Kaya, Mustafa; Tuncer, İsmail Hakkı; Jones, Kevin D.; Platzer, Max F. (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 2009-03-01) Flapping motion parameters of airfoils in a biplane configuration are optimized for maximum thrust and/or propulsive efficiency. Unsteady, viscous flowfields over airfoils flapping in a combined plunge and pitch are computed with a parallel flow solver on moving and deforming overset grids. The amplitudes of the sinusoidal pitch and plunge motions and the phase shift between them are optimized for a range of flapping frequencies. A gradient-based optimization algorithm is implemented in a parallel computing...
High-lift design optimization using Navier-Stokes equations Eyi, Sinan; Rogers, SE; Kwak, D (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), 1996-05-01) This article presents a design optimization method for maximizing lift without increasing the drag of multielement airfoils at takeoff and landing configurations. It uses an incompressible Navier-Stokes dow solver (INS2D), a chimera overlaid grid system (PEGSUS), and a constrained numerical optimizer (DOT). Aerodynamic sensitivity derivatives are obtained using finite differencing. The method is first validated with single-clement airfoil designs and then applied to three-element airfoil designs. Reliable d...

Citation Formats

M. Karasek et al., “Accurate position control of a flapping-wing robot enabling free-flight flow visualisation in a wind tunnel,” INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MICRO AIR VEHICLES, pp. 0–0, 2019, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/40732.