Optimal elastic wing for flapping-wing robots through passive morphing

Accepted for publication in IEE RA-L 2022. Abstract—Flapping wing robots show promise as platforms for safe and efficient flight in near-human operations, thanks to their ability to agile maneuver or perch at a low Reynolds number. The growing trend in the automatization of these robots has to go hand in hand with an increase in the payload capacity. This work provides a new passive morphing wing prototype to increase the payload of this type of UAV. The prototype is based on a biased elastic joint and the holistic research also includes the modelling, simulation and optimization scheme, thus allowing to adapt the prototype for any flapping wing robot. This model has been validated through flight experiments on the available platform, and it has also been demonstrated that the morphing prototype can increase the lift of the robot under study by up to 16% in real flight while consumption is reduced by 10%. C. Ruiz, J.Á. Acosta and A. Ollero The authors would like to thank to Álvaro Satué Crespo for his help in the experimental setup. The authors acknowledge support from the European Project GRIFFIN ERC Advanced Grant 2017 Action 788247, the Project HOMPOT grant P20 00597 under the framework PAIDI 2020 and C. Ruiz is supported also by VI PPIT-US from University of Seville. Contact and follow us in: 🔹 Our website: 🔹Twitter: @grvc_us 🔹LinkedIn: GRVC Copyright © 2022 | GRVC