ORNITHOPTER

Created by : 1) MAHESH KAMBLE Guide

2) PRADNYA KAMBLE Prof. V. CHAUDHARY
3) PRATHAMESH SAPKAL
4) NIKHIL METREWAR
 CONTANTS
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Objectives
• 3. Literature review
• 4. Applications
• 5. Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION
• An ornithopter (from Greek ornithos "bird" and pteron "wing") is an aircraft
that flies by flapping its wings. Designers seek to imitate the flapping-wing
flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, they are
usually built on the same scale as these flying creatures.
• Unmanned Aerial Systems In the burgeoning field of unmanned micro air
vehicles, ornithopters have found a niche for which they are especially well
suited. Low aeroacoustic Signature. Efficient operations at low Reynolds
numbers combined with the ability to fly by thrust alone. Micro-sized aircraft
• Inspired by nature, ornithopters were long considered the only viable means
by which man could achieve the freedom of flight that proved so elusive. .
Ornithopters occupy the rare position of being critical to the formative
stages of aviation as well as to its future. ornitopter resolve the needs of the
ever-developing science of aviation
 OBJECTIVES
• The purpose of this project is to achieve humanity's oldest aeronautical dream: flight
with mechanical flapping wings. Many early aircraft concepts assumed that such
imitation of birds and bats was the proper design direction. However, the challenge
of achieving both efficient lift and thrust with flapping wings was far greater than
simply using the wings for lift and providing thrust with a separate propulsor. This
notion, first articulated by Sir George Cayley in 1799, provided the template for
successful mechanical flight from the Wright Brothers to this day.
• The notion of ornithopter flight became marginalized, although it continued to
fascinate inventors and researchers as described in the History section. One of the
reasons for this is that successful full-scale piloted ornithopter flight is one of the last
great aeronautical records. Despite all of the amazing aerospace achievements
since the Wright Brothers, such as hypersonic flight, voyages to the moon, and
travelling around the world without refueling, this ancient quest remains to be
accomplished.
• Aerodynamic Aspects of an Ornithopter
• Lift is the force that utilizes the fluid continuity and Newton’s Laws to create a force
perpendicular to the flow of fluid. Lift is opposed by weight as it is the force that pulls
things towards the ground. Thrust is the force that moves things through the air while
drag is the aerodynamic force that reduces speed.
• The wings of the ornithopter are attached to the body at slight angle, which is called
the angle of attack; the downward stroke of the wing deflects air downward and
backward, generating the lift and thrust. The surface of the wings is designed flexible
which causes the wings to flex to required angle of attack in order to produce the
forces essential for achieving flight.
• Flapping wings offer improved efficiency , Better maneuverability , Reduced noise
compared with the rotary – driven airplanes and helicopters ,Resemblance to a real
bird enables its use for intelligence and surveillance
 LITERATURE REVIEW
• Leonardo Da Vinci designed some of the first earnest attempts of ornithopters in
1490. In 1870, Gustav Trouve successfully flew a combustion-powered ornithopter,
and a variety of successful ornithopters have been designed and built since then .
Significant improvement had been made at the University of Toronto, where James
De Laurier and his students have built an assortment of successful ornithopters and
have recently designed a manned ornithopter . In the spring of 1998, 22
AeroVironment was awarded a Phase II SBIR contract, which resulted in the current
Black Widow MAV configuration, Davis (1996). Several Universities have also been
involved in MAV research. Competitions have been held since 1997 at the University
of Florida and Arizona State University.
• The aerodynamics of flapping flight is quite different from fixed or rotary winged
flight for two main reasons: the first is that they act in two different aerodynamic
regimes, and the second is that the velocity of the wing or blade relative to the fluid
is time-varying. A clear understanding of flapping flight aerodynamics has been
obtained by dynamically scaled models of insect wings that can reproduce the
same aerodynamics mechanisms present in insect flight by Dickinson et al (1999).
These experiments have unveiled three main aerodynamic mechanisms involved
with flapping flight: the delayed stall, the rotational lift and the wake capture.
 THRUST GENERATION IN FLAPPING
WING
• Knoller and Betz provided the first theoretical explanation of thrust
generation, that a flapping wing encounters an induced angle of attack,
which cants the normal-force vector forward such that it includes both the
lift and thrust components. Katzmayr provided the first experimental
verification of the Knoller-Betz effect. Jones et al (1998) performed Water
tunnel experiments and numerical simulations to investigate the generation
and evaluation of wake structures behind flapping wings. The ability of a
sinusoidaly plunging airfoil to produce thrust, known as Knoller - Betz
• For large birds with slow flapping rate it is less unsteady. But for small birds
and insects it is the aerodynamics are highly unsteady. An MAV is limited to
weight of 100gm to 1kg.
• Joseph C.S. Lai (1999) has presented about the characteristics of a plunging
airfoil at zero free stream velocity. It is proved that at zero velocity, the lift
generation is only due to wing flapping.
 FLAPPING MECHANISM DEVELOPMENT
• Peter Krus (1997) proposed a mechanism that seems to be at least related to
the way birds fly when they are gliding. It was demonstrated that how
different dynamic behavior of flight could be applied on a geometrically
unstable bird like configuration.
• The flapping wing can have three distinct motions with respect to three axes
i.e 1)flapping – which is up and down motion, it produces majority of birds
power and has largest degree of freedom. 2)Feathering is the pitching
motion of wing and can vary along the span. 3)Lead-lag which is in plane
lateral movement of the wing.
• Force generated- It is divided into two strokes 1)Down Stroke- total
aerodynamic force is tilted forward and has two components lift and
negative thrust. 2)Up Stroke- AOA is always positive near the root and varies
at the tip hence aerodynamic force is tilted upward but backward
producing lift and drag.
 AERODYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS
STUDY
• DeLaurier and Harris (1981) conducted the experimental study of flapping
wing thrust. A wing was oscillated in a low speed wind tunnel. The driving
apparatus produced nearly sinusoidal heaving with superimposed pitching
of variable amplitude and phase angle. The average thrusting effort of the
wing was measured and plotted in coefficient form against reduced
frequency, with pitching amplitude and phase angle as a parameter. The
author (1994) has also studied the physics of flapping-wing flight to gain
insights on how animals fly and to assess the possibility of achieving this with
a flapping –wing airplane (ornithopter). He also suggested that, successful
sustained flight required the development of a comprehensive unsteady
aerodynamic/aerostatic analysis complemented with wind tunnel
experiments.
• Bodapati Sathyanarayana and Sanford Davis (1978) described an
investigation to find the range of reduced frequencies over which the
classical Kutta-Joukowsky condition is valid and the nature of deviations
beyond the range. Experimental investigations show that the differential
pressure at the trailing edge approaches zero at lower reduced frequencies,
whereas substantial deviations are reported at higher reduced frequencies.
 APPLICATIONS
1. Used for military applications.
2. Used on Airport for scare away birds.
3. Used for wild life survey.
4. Used for traffic monitering.
 CONCLUSION
• Ornithopters have been a relatively obscure area of research in comparison to fixed
wing aircraft and field of ornithopter design is sparsely populated. Much of the
research done has been performed by hobbyists such as Sean Kinkade. In this report
the case for the construction of a large scale ornithopter suitable for control systems
research and surveillance application is motivated. Performance and weight
constraints imposed by the computers and sensors desired onboard make it difficult
to work with the smaller platforms currently available, let alone micro UAVs currently
in development. The ornithopter was designed from the ground up with the needs of
research in mind. All components have been designed to be as lightweight and
high performance as possible so as to maximize payload capacity and are intended
to fail in predictable and repairable ways. Examples of this are the screw in wing
spars and replaceable face plates. In addition to this all parts of the ornithopter are
simple and inexpensive to fabricate and assemble. Manual and initial autonomous
flight tests have been conducted and show that the ornithopter is capable of
sustained flight with a full load of electronics and can be stabilized by simple
controllers. At the base is the mechanical ornithopter system which has the main
requirement of flying acceptably. Acceptable in this most preliminary case is to
sustain weight of the sensors and computer. Branching out from this base
requirement are several secondary requirements. Because this is a controls research
platform it can be expected that the ornithopter will end most of its beginning
stages, this makes crash survivability of great importance in addition to it being a
reliable machine in less severe conditions. An emphasis is placed on designed points
of failure to isolate damage to parts easily replaced in the field. In addition to this all
of the systems need to be easy to tie into the computer controller.