Journal of Bionic Engineering

Horizontal takeoff of an insect-like flapping-wing micro air vehicle based on stroke

plane modulation
--Manuscript Draft--

Manuscript Number: JBEN-D-21-00124

Full Title: Horizontal takeoff of an insect-like flapping-wing micro air vehicle based on stroke
plane modulation

Article Type: Research Paper

Abstract: Vertical takeoff is commonly adopted in most insect-mimicking flapping-wing micro air
vehicles (FMAV) while insects also tend to horizontal takeoff from ground. In this
research, a FMAV based on stroke plane modulation is designed and fabricated to
investigate how insects adjust their attitude in such short time during horizontal takeoff.
Two sets of flapping wing mechanism based on linkage and string-driven powered for
FMAV. The flapping wing mechanism operates at flapping frequency of 25 Hz and
amplitude of 110°, giving the FMAV a maximum lift of over 50 gf. The stroke plane
rotating mechanism is controlled by independent servo, giving the stroke plane a
maximum rotation range of 110°.The control mechanism not only ensures attitude
stable in hovering flight but also provides a pitch torque of more than 10 Nm at the
moment of takeoff. Dynamic linearization and decoupling control strategies are added
in control system to to accommodate horizontal takeoff. The whole FMAV has a
wingspan of 24.5 cm and weight of 38.4 g including on-board battery. The FMAV
successfully achieves horizontally takeoff in less than 0.5 s.

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J Bionic Eng 15 (2018) ???–??? Journal of Bionic Engineering
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DOI: https://doi.org/12345-018-1234-x http://www.springer.com/journal/42235
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4 Horizontal takeoff of an insect-like flapping-wing micro air vehicle based on
5 stroke plane modulation
6 Zihao Chen1, Weiping Zhang1*, Jiawamg Mou1, Kexin Zheng1
7
8 1. National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Micro/Nano Fabrication Laboratory, School of elec-
9 tronic information and electrical engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
10 Abstract
11 Vertical takeoff is commonly adopted in most insect-mimicking flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FMAV) while
12
13 insects also tend to horizontal takeoff from ground. In this research, a FMAV based on stroke plane modulation is
14 designed and fabricated to investigate how insects adjust their attitude in such short time during horizontal takeoff.
15 Two sets of flapping wing mechanism based on linkage and string-driven powered for FMAV. The flapping wing
16 mechanism operates at flapping frequency of 25 Hz and amplitude of 110°, giving the FMAV a maximum lift of over
17
18 50 gf. The stroke plane rotating mechanism is controlled by independent servo, giving the stroke plane a maximum
19 rotation range of 110°.The control mechanism not only ensures attitude stable in hovering flight but also provides a
20 pitch torque of more than 10 Nm at the moment of takeoff. Dynamic linearization and decoupling control strategies are
21
added in control system to to accommodate horizontal takeoff. The whole FMAV has a wingspan of 24.5 cm and
22
23 weight of 38.4 g including on-board battery. The FMAV successfully achieves horizontally takeoff in less than 0.5 s.
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25
26
Highlight
27 A four-wing insect-like FMAV with high lift, large control torque is built to reproduce the horizontal takeoff like
28 a real insect; Wide range stroke plane modulation is adopted in FMAV’s control which provides great initial pitch
29 torque and avoids collision with ground at the beginning of takeoff; Experiment shows the nonlinearity of stroke plane
30
31 modulation at large rotation angle. Linearization and decoupling control strategies are adopted to accommodate hor-
32 izontal takeoff.
33
34
35 Keywords: micro air vehicle, flapping wing, horizontal takeoff, stroke plane
36
37
38 1 Introduction
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40 Insects have excellent flight maneuverability and variable wing trajectories in the air. The flight
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43 strategies of insect are so rich and diverse that many researchers are curious and try to mimic it.
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45 Therefore, many unsteady aerodynamics models are developed for explaining how insects obtain aer-
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48 odynamic forces by flapping their wings[1-3]. Meanwhile many micro manufacturing and avionics
49
50 technologies also have advanced with the popularity of micro drones in past few decades. Based on
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52 these theories and technologies, a lot of FMAVs are developed.
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55 Some FMAVs are at true insect scale, such as RobeBee developed by Micro robotics Laboratory in
56
57 Harvard University[4], flapping wing robot developed by Purdue University[5], flapping wing robot
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60 *Corresponding author: Weiping Zhang
61 E-mail: zhangwp@sjtu.edu.cn
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developed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University[6, 7]. These FMAVs typically weigh a few tens of milli-
5
6 grams and depend on external power and control which are still far from practical.
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8 Some FMAVs are relatively large and capable of on-board energy and flight controller. Nano
9
10
11 hummingbird is the first successful takeoff Hummingbird-like FMAV with on-board battery and avi-
12
13 onics which is developed by AeroVironment Company[8], Delfly aircraft is a series of four-wings
14
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16 FMAVs designed by Micro Air Vehicles Laboratory of Delft University of Technology[9-12], including
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18 DelFly I, Delfly II, Delfly micro, Delfly Nimble. Robotic hummingbird designed by Texas A&M
19
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21 University weighs 62 g and achieves free control flight[13]. KUBeetle designed by Konkuk University is
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23 developed several generations and the latest one weighs 15.8 g and can hover for 8.8 min[14-16]. Hum-
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mingbird robot designed by Purdue University adopts direct motor driven and achieves controlled
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28 takeoff and hovering flight[17]. Nus-hummingbird designed by National University of Singapore adopts
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30 wing stroke plane modulation and endures 3.5 min in flight[18].COLIBRI robot designed by Universitr’
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33 Libre de Bruxelles weighs 22 g and demonstrates successful hovering flights of 15–20 s[19].
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35 It is noteworthy that all of these FMAVs take off in a vertical attitude. However, most of the insects
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38 in nature take off in a horizontal attitude from ground. How do insects regulate their wings during
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40 horizontal takeoff? What kind of control strategy is adopted to make the attitude change dramatically
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and take off smoothly in a short time?
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45 Different from the existing FMAV before, this research designs a four-wing FMAV that can take
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47 off in a horizontal attitude. A control mechanism based on rotation of stroke plane is adopted in this
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50 FMAV, the stroke plane angle of each flapping wing mechanism is controlled by independent servo and
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52 the adjustable angle is 110° wide. A powerful flapping wing mechanism is designed to produce more
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55 than 50 gf lift and 11 Nmm pitching torque to take off and correct attitude even when the FMAV is in
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57 horizontal. In addition, experiment shows non-linear variation of torque when the aircraft adjusts from
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60 horizontal state to vertical state. A new control strategy based on different rotation angle is specially
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Jbe et al.: Journal of Bionic Engineering 3
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4 designed to adjust the takeoff state.
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7 2 Mechanism design
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9 2.1 Flapping wing mechanism
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11 Considering that the flapping amplitude is large and FMAV is sensitive to weight, flapping wing
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14 mechanism should have a large transmission radio while its size keeps small. So the flapping wing
15
16 mechanism used in this FMAV integrates linkage and string-drive which is similar to KUBeetle[20]. This
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19 flapping wing mechanism has advantages of high transmission radio and compact structure.
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21 Because the aircraft has two sets of symmetrical flapping wing mechanisms and the flapping am-
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23 plitude of the wings should cover the entire plane as much as possible to provide larger lift while pre-
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26 venting the interference among wings of left and right flapping wing mechanisms, the flapping fre-
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28 quency is set to 25 Hz and the flapping amplitude is set to 110°.
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31 A simplified model of flapping wing mechanism is established in order to analyze the motion of the
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33 mechanism. The mechanism is composed of a group of crank-rocker mechanism OCDE and string drive
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36 OAB. The motor is decelerated by gears to drive the crank to rotate. The crank rocker mechanism
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38 OCDE transforms the continuous rotation of crank ED into the flapping of rocker OC and the string
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drive OAB enlarge the amplitude to drive the leading edge of wings.
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43 Fig.1 shows the flapping wing mechanism schematics. The rocker OE and the primary pulley are
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45 fixed and placed on point O. The length of ED, DC, OC and distance between OE are denoted by
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47
48 . The rotation angles of ED and OC are denoted by and the angle between OE and axis Y
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50
51 is denoted by .
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53 As shown in Fig.2, the OC1D1E, OC2D2E is the state of the crank rocker mechanism at limit position,
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56 and the corresponding angles of rocker OC are . Considering the symmetry of motion, we let
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58
59 .According to geometric law, obeys following equation.
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6 (1)
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11 The leading edge of the wings and the secondary pulley are fixed. The secondary pulleys are placed
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14 in point A and B. The rotation angle of secondary pulley is equal to flapping angle which is denoted by
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16 . With the help of the dashed string, the primary pulleys drive the left and right secondary runners to
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19 rotate. The rotation angle of primary pulley is given by:
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(2)
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26 Since the flapping amplitude is designed to 110 degrees , dimensions of flapping wing mechanism
27
28 can be calculated by equation (1) and (2).
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31 The relationship between flapping amplitude and crank rotation angle can be described by
32
33 (3)
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36 Combined equations (2) and (3) ,we can use numerical method to obtain how flapping angle and
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pulley rotation angle change with crank angle in Fig.3.
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41 As shown in Fig.4, The flapping wing mechanism comprises upper frame, lower frame, gear set,
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43 motor, pulleys, connecting rod, leading edge and trailing edge.
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46 The main body of upper frame and lower frame are made from two layers of 0.5mm carbon fibre
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48 reinforced plastics (CFRP) board. Laser cutting is used in manufacture of CFRP board to offers more
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51 accuracy in size and ultra-small square groove to cooperate with other parts. The other parts which have
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53 complex three-dimensional shape to realize functions such as hinge are fabricated by 3D printing and
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they are glued to the CFRP substrate by structural sdhesive.
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58 A DC coreless motor is selected to drive flapping wing mechanism. The motor should have low
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60 rotating inertia, light weight and high energy density to fit the motion of flapping wing. The model of
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Jbe et al.: Journal of Bionic Engineering 5
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4 motor is selected as 8520 with rated voltage of 3.7 V and no-load speed of 50000 rpm.
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6 Considering that the no-load speed of the motor is too high while the flapping frequency is 25 Hz, a
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gear set is required to slow down speed and raise the torque. Polyoxymethylene (POM) is a type of light
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11 weight, fatigue resistance, low friction coefficient material which is commonly used in plastic gear.
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13 Copper gear has high precision and can withstand greater working pressure, suitable for small module
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16 gear. Therefore, the gear cemented with the motor is copper gear with modulus of 0.3. Other gears are
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18 POM gears including 0.3 and 0.5 modulus gears. All of these gears are made by CNC. Gears, the upper
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21 frame and lower frame are matched by gear shafts and bearings and the last grade gear and crank are
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23 one-piece milled. The transmission ratio of the gear is set to 23:1.
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The leading edge is composed of a 1 mm diameter CFRP rod and a CFRP base. It is firmly bonded
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28 with the secondary pulley by glue. The trailing edge is made of 1 mm thick CFRP board by direct laser
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30 cutting which is also used as support between the upper and lower frames of the flapping wing mech-
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33 anism.
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35 The connecting rod and other supporting parts are fabricated by laser cutting to ensure accuracy of
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38 the groove features. The source material is 0.5 mm or 1 mm CFRP board to provide enough strength. All
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40 parts that may have relative motion are coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) lubricating mate-
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43 rials before assembly to minimize friction during motion. Assembled flapping wing mechanism is
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45 shown in Fig.5.
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2.2 Wing
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50 Referring to insects wing shape and previous research[21-23], the shape of wings is designed as shown
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52 in Fig.6. Its main parts include wing membrane, main vein, branch vein, reinforcement membrane,
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55 leading edge sleeve and trailing edge sleeve.
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57 Because light weight and low inertia are the key to generate lift and torque efficiently, reducing the
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60 inertia force and energy loss of wings under high-frequency flapping is important. Besides, wing should
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have high strength to avoid tearing when the wings beat each other.
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6 Some previous tests show that the main cause of wing damage is the tearing of the wing edge.
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8 Therefore, 5 μm polyimide (PI) film is used as the wing membrane. This kind of film has good me-
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11 chanical strength and strong tear resistance. At the same time, the edge of the wing is coated with a
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13 reinforced 10 μm PI film. This design can make the main wing membrane as thin as possible while
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16 avoid tearing at the edge. The main vein of the wing is made of 0.6 mm CFRP strip and the branch vein
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18 is made of 0.3 mm CFRP strip. The main vein, branch vein and wing membrane are overlapped together
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21 under high temperature and pressure to ensure the close combination of each part. The sleeve structure
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23 is formed by pre-bending and folding the wing membrane before overlapping. The sleeve structure can
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ensure that the leading edge and tailing edge rotate freely. Moreover, the leading-edge sleeve is not as
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28 long as the whole wing, and the leading edge only extends to 4 / 9 of the length of the wing, which can
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30 not only reduce the weight of the wing tip, but also swing the whole wing. In addition, if the chord
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33 length is too long, it will collide with the ground and affect the takeoff process when FMAV takeoff
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35 horizontally, so the aspect ratio should not be too small just like some insects.
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38 At last, the wing length is 90 mm, chord length is 28 mm, aspect ratio is 3.2, and the total weight is
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40 only 150 mg.
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2.3 Attitude control mechanism
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45 Insects generate the aerodynamic force and torque by changing the flapping motion of their wings.
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47 Some researches try to generate the control torque by changing the flapping amplitude and offset of
48
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50 their wings[17] .Some try to generate the control torque by changing the stroke plane of their wings[18]
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52 and some try to generate the control torque by adjusting the trailing edge to change lift and resistance of
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55 the wing[16]. Although the flapping amplitude, offset, stroke plane and etc. of insect's wing all change
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57 during horizontal takeoff, we tend to reduce the number of drivers in realistic bionic design.
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60 All of the effects produced by changes of flapping wing trajectory are simplified to changes in the
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4 direction, size and position of left and right aerodynamic forces. Compared to other control method, the
5
6 modulation of the stroke plane can utilize the maximum aerodynamic force and the longest force arm.
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So the modulation of the stroke plane can generate great pitching torque for rapidly attitude adjustment
10
11 and avoid the collision between the wing and the ground at the beginning of horizontal takeoff.
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13 Therefore, we use the method of changing the stroke plane to control pitch and yaw.
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16 When the plane of flapping wing rotates, the direction of aerodynamic force generated by flapping
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18 wing mechanism also changes. The principle of control torque is shown in Fig.7 . When the left and
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21 right flapping wing mechanisms rotate in the same direction, the lift of both sides turn in the same di-
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23 rection and the pitch torque is generated. When the left and right flapping wing mechanisms rotate in the
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opposite direction, the lift on both sides turn in different direction and the yaw torque is generated.
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28 When the flapping frequencies of the left and right flapping wing mechanisms are inconsistent, the lift
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30 on both sides are different, and the rolling torque is generated.
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33 The transformation of the stroke plane is realized by servo and linkage mechanism that represented
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35 in Fig.8. The servo is attached to the frame. When the rocker arm of the servo rotates, the flapping wing
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38 mechanism synchronously rotates by linkage mechanism, so as to rotate the stroke plane.
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40 In order to realize horizontal takeoff, the rotation angle of stroke plane is particular designed to fit
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43 the generation of pitch torque. When FMAV is in horizontal attitude, rotation angle of stroke plane must
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45 be large even be vertical to frame to generate enough pitch torque for correcting the attitude rapidly.
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While FMAV returns to vertical attitude, stroke plane must overswing to correct the overshot of attitude
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50 and keep FMAV hovering in the air. The rotation angle of stroke plane is set to -30° to 80°.
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52 Considering that the servo's working amplitude is 110° and the mechanism of controlling stroke
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55 plane should be compact and direct, parallel four-bar mechanism is selected as linkage mechanism.
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57 Therefore, the servo's working angle is the rotation angle of the stroke plane which is defined by .
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60 2.4 Prototype
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The FMAV prototype consists of flapping wing mechanism, wing, attitude control mechanism,
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6 flight control board, battery and skeleton. The total weight is 38.4 g and the proportion of weight is
7
8 shown in Fig.9. The FMAV prototype shown in Fig.10 has a frequency of 25 Hz, a full wingspan of 24.5
9
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11 cm, a battery capacity of 250 mah, a total power of 16 W and a maximum lift of 50 gf.
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3 Control system
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16 3.1 Dynamic model
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In order to analyze the position and attitude of the aircraft in the air, the body coordinate system is
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21 defined in Fig.11. point O is the position of the center of gravity (CG) of the whole prototype. Z-axis is
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23 the central axis of the body and the body is symmetrical about the xoz plane. Yaw, pitch and roll angle
24
25
26 are defined as .
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29 Because the left and right flapping mechanism are independently drived by two separate motors, the
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31 force/torque generated by them are independent too. The force/torque of the whole body is a combina-
32
33
tion of the force/torque generated by the left and right flapping mechanisms. Because the flapping
34
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36 mechanism is symmetrical, the force along the x-axis is only the component of the lift along the x-axis.
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38 Because the motion of left and right flapping mechanism is approximately symmetrical, the average
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41 force along the y-axis is zero. Because the connecting string of flapping mechanisms’ rotation joints is
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43 approximately at 1 / 2 of the chord of the wing and the chord of wing is short, aerodynamic center (AC)
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46 is assumed to be on the connection line of flapping mechanism rotary joints.
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48 Fig.12 describes the projection of FMAV’s body on yoz plane. The distance between AC and CG
49
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51 from x axis and y axis are denoted by and . The lift of left and right flapping wing mechanism are
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53 denoted by , The rotation angle of left and right flapping wing mechanism are denoted by
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55
56 .According to Newton’s law and focusing on the effect of stroke plane without considering the
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59 damping term, the attitude of FMAV follows the equation on body coordinate.
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Jbe et al.: Journal of Bionic Engineering 9
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6
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8 (4)
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14 Therefore, the parameter can be used to adjust FMAV’s control performance, which are
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17 related to FMAV’s structure. Constants are introduced to simplify the form of control law,
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20 Equation (4) can be rewrited to following equation.
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23
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25 (5)
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28
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30 Where is average of which is throttle input and is difference between which
31
32
33 is roll input. is average of which is pitch input and is difference between which is
34
35
36 yaw input.
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38 3.2 PID controller
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40
41 In order to stabilize the FMAV’s attitude in the air, a feedback control system is introduced. The
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43 controller is based on the traditional PID controller which is widely used in FMAV due to its versatility.
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46 The transfer function of PID is indicated by following equation.
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48
49 (6)
50
51
52 Where means proportional gain, means integral gain, means differential gain. These
53
54
55 initial parameters can be confirmed by test. The PID control Block diagram is shown in Fig.13.
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3.3 Control strategy during takeoff
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60 Different from vertical takeoff, the FMAV need a great initial pitch torque and has a wide rapid
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change of pitch angle during horizontal takeoff. The control model is different in various states. The
5
6 equation shows that at small rotation angles, and are almost linearly related respec-
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tively. While the rotation angle gets larger, the relation between and is difficult to
11
12 describe by a simple linear relationship.
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15 Considering pitch control, the characteristics of nonlinear element in control loop is . An ap-
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proximation of inverse of is added after PID controller shown in Fig.14. A lookup table showed in
19
20 Table 1 is used to get the different output in different input which gets greater output when FMAV
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23 gets close to horizon position.
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25 Considering roll and yaw control, a dynamic decoupling mixer is built to combine the effect of input
26
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28 and in different shown in Fig.15. A lookup table is used to get the different coefficients in
29
30
31 different states which is automatically switched depending on rotation angle. The control command is
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33 combined by input and . RC and YC are normalized roll and yaw command, Coefficient used in
34
35
36 mixer KRY are denoted by Table 2.
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38
39 (7)
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43 4 Experiment
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46 4.1 Force and torque measurement
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48 Force and torque measurement can help us understand the performance of prototype. A force/torque
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51
measurement system based on six-axis sensor is built to test the prototype. Just like the previous re-
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53 searches[24], Nano 17(ATI, made in America, resolution 0.3gf) and supporting data acquisition device
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55 are selected to acquire the force/torque data. The fixture base is designed as shown in Fig.16 especially
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57
58 considering the flapping wing mechanism rotation angle works at 90°. The prototype, base and Nano 17
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60 are bolted together. Because the position of the measuring point (MC) does not coincide with the posi-
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Jbe et al.: Journal of Bionic Engineering 11
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4 tion of CG, the torque collected by sensor should be converted to torque of CG.
5
6 To facilitate the test, when collecting the force/torque of the test prototype at different rotation an-
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gles of flapping wing mechanism, a DC regulated power supply (UNI_ T. made in China) is used as the
10
11 input. While collecting the force and torque data of the test prototype at start-up. the battery (3.8 V, 220
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13 mah, manufactured by Hyperion) is used as the input.
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16 Fig.17 shows the lift generated by flapping wing mechanism at different voltages. The instantaneous
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18 maximum lift can reach 50 gf at 4 V, which satisfies the power requirement of FMAV. Besides, it can be
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21 seen that there is a strong linear relationship between lift force and voltage, and the relationship between
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23 voltage U and lift T can be expressed by the following equation.
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25
26 (8)
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29 Where is the constant related to flapping wing mechanism. is the minimum voltage to drive
30
31 the mechanism which is relative to motor and friction. Therefore, the voltage difference between the left
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34 and right flapping wing mechanisms can be used to control the roll of the aircraft, and the voltage dif-
35
36 ference is proportional to the roll torque.
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39 Pitch torque generated by single flapping wing mechanism under different plane rotation angles are
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41 collected and shown in Fig.18. When the rotation angle of the flapping wing mechanism is small, the
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44
relationship between pitch torque and rotation angle is essentially linear. When the rotation angle is
45
46 larger, the pitch torque is less than the predicted value of the linear relationship. As the rotation angle
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48 approaches 70°, the maximum torque across the prototype exceeds 10 Nmm, which allows the proto-
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51 type to adjust its attitude rapidly.
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53 Roll torque generated by single flapping wing mechanism under different plane rotation angles are
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56 collected and shown in Fig.19. The roll torque is not only generated by different input voltages of motor,
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58 rotation angle also influences roll torque. When rotation angle is less than 30°, the variation of rolling
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61 torque is less than 10% and the rotation angle has almost no effect on it. But when rotation angle gets
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close to 70°, the loss of roll torque is more than 50% which means that in the case of large rotation angle,
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6 the difference between rotation angles can generate roll torque and the effect of voltage difference of the
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8 motor is reduced at the same time.
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11 Yaw torque generated by single flapping wing mechanism under different plane rotation angles are
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13 collected and shown in Fig.20. Since the yaw torque and the rotation angle show a good linear rela-
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16 tionship when the rotation angle is small, the difference in rotation angle can be used to generate the yaw
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18 control torque. However, when the rotation angle is large, the linearity become worse and the control
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21 torque is reduced.
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23 Fig.21(a) shows how lift force changes when the voltage jumps from 0 to 3.7 V. Fig.21(b) shows the
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average lift force every 0.03 s (almost one flapping cycle). The takeoff process is so short that the time
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28 of the takeoff process is the same order of magnitude as the time of the lift increasing from zero to
29
30 overcoming gravity. In addition, different flapping wing mechanisms have different voltage-lift re-
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33 sponses. Therefore, the FMAV’s disturbance of attitude especially roll angle is hard to avoid at the be-
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35 ginning of the takeoff.
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38 4.2 Flight test
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40 The horizontal takeoff process is very short, a motion capture system based on Vicon is built to track
41
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the attitude and position of FMAV which is widely used in micro biomimetic aircraft research. The
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45 schematic diagram is shown in Fig.22. Considering the FMAV dashes forward both in y and x-axis
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47 direction during horizontal takeoff, 8 Vicon camera are placed surrounding the test space which is 3m
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50 ×3m×2m long. Six mark spheres are attached to the prototype. The prototype is placed at the edge of
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53 the platform which is 1m upon the ground. The Vicon cameras capture the attitude and position of the
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55 prototype at 300 Hz sampling rate.
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A group of suitable PID controller parameters are selected through some early tests. The prototype is
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60 equipped with 220mah, 1s lithium battery to supply energy. The remote controller sends wireless signals
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4 to control the throttle of the aircraft. The attitude of the aircraft is automatically adjusted by algorithm.
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6 Fig.23 captures the specific positions of the prototype at different times during horizontal takeoff. It
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takes about 0.5 s for the aircraft to change from horizontal attitude to vertical attitude during takeoff.
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11 Fig.24 shows pitch, roll and yaw angles of the prototype during horizontal takeoff. Because the
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13 prototype has a bracket, the initial attitude is not completely horizontal and the initial pitch angle is
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16 about 10 .The prototype begins taking off at 0.23 s. The first peak of pitch angle is at 0.73 s. The max
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19 pitch angle is 108.9 . The prototype adjusted its attitude from horizontal to vertical in less than 1
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21 second. During takeoff, the roll and yaw remained mostly stable with a fluctuation of about 10°.
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24 Fig.25 shows three projected trajectories of the prototype in the yoz plane. The arrow points in the
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26 same direction as the head of the prototype. When the prototype takes off horizontally, it rushes upward
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diagonally for a distance. The prototype takes 0.5 m to 0.8 m adjust its head direction.
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31 Fig.26 shows those trajectories in 3D view. Although the left and right flapping wing mechanism are
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33 made with the same process and materials as possible, there is always a lift difference between the two
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36 flaps at the beginning of takeoff due to some manufacturing errors, different motor characteristics and
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38 friction, which makes the prototype have a tendency to face to one side in the beginning. Although this
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41 deviation can be corrected in a short period of time after the roll control takes effect, it still causes the
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43 vehicle to be shifted by some distance.
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46 5 Discussion and conclusion
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48 In this research, a four-wing FMAV is designed to mimic insect’s horizontal takeoff. The prototype
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51 weighs 38.4 g, has a wingspan of 24.5 cm and a flapping frequency of 25 Hz. The flapping mechanism
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53 adopts linkage mechanism and string-drive mechanism and single flapping wing mechanism can pro-
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56 duce 25 gf lift. Two flapping wing mechanisms are placed on either side of the frame. The control
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58 mechanism generates control torque by adjusting the rotation angle of stroke plane, which is adjustable
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from -30° to 80 that provided great initial pitch torque. Wings are optimized to reduce weight while
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6 preventing tearing and adapted for horizontal takeoff.
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8 The attitude stabilization of the vehicle depends on three control quantities: the difference of the
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11 flapping mechanism motors’ voltage, the average and difference of stroke planes’ rotation angle. When
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13 FMAV keeps hovering, the attitude control is basically a linear system. But when the rotation angle
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16 changes, the control law of the vehicle also changes. In order to achieve a horizontal takeoff, an inverse
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18 of nonlinear element is added in pitch control that compensate pitch torque at large rotation angle and a
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21 dynamic decoupler is added in yaw and roll control to mix control quantities to respond to different
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23 rotation angle.
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The Force and torque tests show a linear relationship between motor voltage and lift. The prototype
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28 can produce 50 gf lift at 4 V. At small rotation angle, pitch and yaw torques are linear with rotation angle,
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30 the change of roll torque with rotation angle is very small. At large rotation angle, the pitch and yaw
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33 torques are smaller than the linear prediction, and the roll torque decreases as the rotation angle in-
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35 creases. The maximum pitch, roll and yaw torque of single flapping wing mechanism are 5.5 Nmm, 21
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38 Nmm and 15 Nmm. The horizontal takeoff and hovering flight tests show the prototype is well adapted
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40 to large changes in pitch angle during horizontal takeoff. The prototype takes off the ground immedi-
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ately and takes less than 0.5s to adjust its attitude to vertical position and keeps hovering in the air.
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45 In summary, the FMAV we designed in this paper achieves horizontal takeoff like a real insect which
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47 relies on well-designed stroke plane rotation mechanism, powerful flapping wing mechanism and im-
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50 proved control strategy based on large rotation angle. There are many variations in the wing trajectory
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52 of the insect during takeoff, but the variation in the stroke plane provides a large amount of pitch torque
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55 especially when the stroke plane is far from CG which is much needed during the initial phase of takeoff
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57 to effectively reduce takeoff time. Meanwhile the control method based on stroke plane modulation
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60 exhibit non-linearity at large rotation angle, and linearisation and decoupled control strategies can help
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4 us to cope with this situation during horizontal takeoff.
5
6 Acknowledgments
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9 This research is supported by the Supporting Foundation of the Ministry of Education of the Peo-
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11 ple's Republic of China (6141A02022627), and the Pre-research Fund.
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13
14 References
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16 [1] Chin, D.D. and D. Lentink, Flapping wing aerodynamics: from insects to vertebrates. Journal of Experimental Biology,
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32 [10] De Wagter, C., et al., Autonomous flight of a 20-gram Flapping Wing MAV with a 4-gram onboard stereo vision system.
33 [11] Karásek, M., et al., A tailless aerial robotic flapper reveals that flies use torque coupling in rapid banked turns. Science,
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[12] Lentink, D., S.R. Jongerius, and N.L. Bradshaw, The Scalable Design of Flapping Micro-Air Vehicles Inspired by Insect
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Flight. 2009, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 185-205.
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[13] Coleman, D., et al., Design, Development and Flight-Testing of a Robotic Hummingbird, American Helicopter Society
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[14] Phan, H.V., et al., Stable vertical takeoff of an insect-mimicking flapping-wing system without guide implementing
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inherent pitching stability. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2012, 9(4), 391-401.
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[15] Phan, H.V., et al., Towards the Long-Endurance Flight of an Insect-Inspired, Tailless, Two-Winged, Flapping-Wing
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43 Flying Robot. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 2020, 5(4), 5059-5066.
44 [16] Phan, H.V., T. Kang, and H.C. Park, Design and stable flight of a 21 g insect-like tailless flapping wing micro air vehicle
45 with angular rates feedback control. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2017, 12(3), 036006.
46 [17] Tu, Z., et al., An At-Scale Tailless Flapping-Wing Hummingbird Robot. I. Design, Optimization, and Experimental
47 Validation. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 2020, 36(5), 1511-1525.
48 [18] Nguyen, Q.-V. and W.L. Chan, Development and flight performance of a biologically-inspired tailless flapping-wing
49 micro air vehicle with wing stroke plane modulation. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2018, 14(1), 016015.
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53 Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2016, 11(4), 046001.
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55 wings in hover. Physics of Fluids, 2016, 28(11), 111901.
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57 an insect-like tailless flying robot. Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2018, 13(3), 036009.
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3 Insect-mimicking Flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicle. Journal of Bionic Engineering, 2015, 12(4), 539-554.
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20 Fig.1 Flapping wing mechanism. Integrating crank-rocker mechanism OCDE and string drive OAB.
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38 Fig.2 State of crank-rocker mechanism OCDE in Limit position.
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54 Fig.3 Time history of the pulley rotation angle and flapping angle.
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13 Fig.4 CAD model of flapping wing mechanism. Main component includes upper frame, lower frame, gear set, motor, pulleys, con-
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Fig.5 The complete and assembled flapping wing mechanism.
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41 Fig.6 The wing adopted in FMAV contains wing membrane, main vein, branch vein, reinforcement membrane, leading edge sleeve
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3 Fig.7 Control torque generation mechanism (a) yaw torque is generated by rotation of stroke planes in opposite directions (b) pitch
4 torque is generated by rotation of stroke planes in same directions (c) roll torque is generated by difference between flapping mechanisms.
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25 Fig.8 The realization of stroke plane transformation. The rotation angle definition.
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35 Fig.9 Mass distribution of FMAV.
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51 Fig.10 Physical picture of the prototype.
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21 Fig.11 The definition of pitch roll yaw and body coordinate.
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37 Fig.12 The position of AG and CG, l and h can be adjusted by changing the distance of flapping mechanism and location of battery.
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47 Fig.13 Initial PID control block diagram.
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57 Fig.14 Pitch control block diagram with additional linearization session.
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13 Fig.15 Roll/yaw control block diagram with dynamic .
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41 Fig.16 Force/torque measurement system based on nano 17 sensor; the body is upside-down to avoid ground effect.
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55 Fig.17 Lift-U relationship.
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16 Fig.18 Pitch torque vs. rotation angle
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Fig.20 Yaw torque vs. rotation angle
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14 (a)Lift during voltage jump from 0 to 3.7V
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Fig.23 The moment of takeoff of the prototype captured by high-speed camera at one shot every 0.05s
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16 (a)Time history of pitch angle
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42 (c) Time history of yaw angle
Fig.24 attitude angle vs. time during vertical takeoff.
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25 Table 1 Lookup table for pitch control
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27 Rotation angle of stroke plane
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Table 2 Dynamic matrix for roll and yaw control
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