Micro Air Vehicle

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Micro Air Vehicle

Richard Kelso and Maziar Arjomandi

Craig Michael Gerrard, Richard Hillan, Matthieu Richard Nelson and Mathew Thomas Ward

(Commenced: 01-Jan-2007,Concluded: 12-Dec-2007)

Richard Kelso

arjomandi[1]

Maziar Arjomandi

Craig Michael Gerrard

Richard Hillan

Matthieu Richard Nelson

Mathew Thomas Ward

Micro air vehicle (MAV) design is a recent offshoot of the development of unmanned air vehicles which has been an area of increased focus, especially in military disciplines, over the past few decades. It is envisaged that these vehicles will have applications in a range of defence operations in the future, including reconnaissance, communication and surveillance missions. Research across the area indicates the majority of MAVs have a single pair of fixed-wings similar to a traditional large scale aircraft. However, inspired by the unsteady flight mechanisms of insects, flapping wing designs are beginning to attract serious research and are becoming more viable.

MAVs fly at very low speeds and vehicle dimensions are limited to measuring less than 150mm in length, span and height and the mass no greater than 100g (Beasley, 2006). The small dimensions of the vehicle and the low flight speed result in a significantly lower Reynolds number. This poses a challenge in generating lift for a MAV with a fixed-wing design, as the ratio between drag and lift coefficient increases at low Reynolds numbers (Berg, 1999). The degradation in aerodynamic performance indicates that the design of MAVs cannot be based on the same concepts as conventional aircraft as not all the aerodynamic forces allowing larger scale aircraft to remain airborne are generated at a micro scale. Flapping wing vehicles exhibit an attractive design for small vehicles travelling at low speeds. In addition, flapping wing MAVs offer advantages in that they are manoeuvrable at slow speeds and therefore ideal for indoor flight.

This projet covers the research and development undertaken into the construction and analysis of a flapping wing MAV. An aircraft of this description is known as an ornithopter. The biplane design selected for this project differs from more traditional ornithopters in that it uses the flapping motion to produce a vectored thrust rather than generating a pressure difference over the wings and therefore lift. Thus the lift and forward velocity are both components of the vectored thrust generated by the flapping. This lift and thrust is not dependent on the velocity of the ornithopter through the air so it is an ideal mechanism for operations at low speed on a MAV scale.

Project Deliverables

Final report

Poster 1

Poster 2

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