Design and Wind Tunnel Test of an Active Morphing Wing Ornithopter

  • DUAN Wenbo ,
  • ANG Haisong ,
  • XIAO Tianhang
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  • College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China

Received date: 2012-03-20

  Revised date: 2012-12-07

  Online published: 2013-03-29

Supported by

National Natural Science Foundation of China (11002072);Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (20103218120001)

Abstract

An active morphing flapping wing can mimic the complex movement of a flying bird's wings. In order to understand the aerodynamics of the active morphing wing ornithopter, the bird's bone structure as well as the laws of motion of its wing and tail are studied, and an active morphing wing ornithopter is designed and built based on robotics. The laws of motion of the ornithopter are presented, a control system is designed and built. Wind tunnel tests of the ornithopter are performed in a low-speed wind tunnel. The lift and thrust characteristics are studied. Furthermore, the influence of wind velocity, flapping frequency, amplitude and stretch phase on lift and thrust is investigated. A conventional flapping wing is tested for contrast. The test result shows that the active morphing wing can significantly increase the lift and enhance the ability of the ornithopter to adapt to various flight statuses.

Cite this article

DUAN Wenbo , ANG Haisong , XIAO Tianhang . Design and Wind Tunnel Test of an Active Morphing Wing Ornithopter[J]. ACTA AERONAUTICAET ASTRONAUTICA SINICA, 2013 , 34(3) : 474 -486 . DOI: 10.7527/S1000-6893.2013.0083

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