Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts
Natural fliers utilize passive and active flight control strategies to cope with windy conditions. This capability makes them incredibly agile and resistant to wind gusts. Here, we study how insects achieve this, by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of flying fruit flies with fre...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2022-02-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
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| Online Access: | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2022.820363/full |
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| author | Diana A. Olejnik Florian T. Muijres Matěj Karásek Leonardo Honfi Camilo Christophe De Wagter Guido C.H.E. de Croon |
| author_facet | Diana A. Olejnik Florian T. Muijres Matěj Karásek Leonardo Honfi Camilo Christophe De Wagter Guido C.H.E. de Croon |
| author_sort | Diana A. Olejnik |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Natural fliers utilize passive and active flight control strategies to cope with windy conditions. This capability makes them incredibly agile and resistant to wind gusts. Here, we study how insects achieve this, by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of flying fruit flies with freely-flying robotic experiments. The CFD analysis shows that flying flies are partly passively stable in side-wind conditions due to their dorsal-ventral wing-beat asymmetry defined as wing-stroke dihedral. Our robotic experiments confirm that this mechanism also stabilizes free-moving flapping robots with similar asymmetric dihedral wing-beats. This shows that both animals and robots with asymmetric wing-beats are dynamically stable in sideways wind gusts. Based on these results, we developed an improved model for the aerodynamic yaw and roll torques caused by the coupling between lateral motion and the stroke dihedral. The yaw coupling passively steers an asymmetric flapping flyer into the direction of a sideways wind gust; in contrast, roll torques are only stabilizing at high air gust velocities, due to non-linear coupling effects. The combined CFD simulations, robot experiments, and stability modeling help explain why the majority of flying insects exhibit wing-beats with positive stroke dihedral and can be used to develop more stable and robust flapping-wing Micro-Air-Vehicles. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:10:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4b2d72b6375c4836ad383845df6c0547 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2296-9144 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:10:35Z |
| publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Robotics and AI |
| spelling | doaj.art-4b2d72b6375c4836ad383845df6c05472022-12-21T23:48:47ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Robotics and AI2296-91442022-02-01910.3389/frobt.2022.820363820363Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-GustsDiana A. Olejnik0Florian T. Muijres1Matěj Karásek2Leonardo Honfi Camilo3Christophe De Wagter4Guido C.H.E. de Croon5MAVLab, Department of Control and Operations, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsExperimental Zoology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, NetherlandsMAVLab, Department of Control and Operations, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsExperimental Zoology Group, Department of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, NetherlandsMAVLab, Department of Control and Operations, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsMAVLab, Department of Control and Operations, Delft University of Technology, Delft, NetherlandsNatural fliers utilize passive and active flight control strategies to cope with windy conditions. This capability makes them incredibly agile and resistant to wind gusts. Here, we study how insects achieve this, by combining Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analyses of flying fruit flies with freely-flying robotic experiments. The CFD analysis shows that flying flies are partly passively stable in side-wind conditions due to their dorsal-ventral wing-beat asymmetry defined as wing-stroke dihedral. Our robotic experiments confirm that this mechanism also stabilizes free-moving flapping robots with similar asymmetric dihedral wing-beats. This shows that both animals and robots with asymmetric wing-beats are dynamically stable in sideways wind gusts. Based on these results, we developed an improved model for the aerodynamic yaw and roll torques caused by the coupling between lateral motion and the stroke dihedral. The yaw coupling passively steers an asymmetric flapping flyer into the direction of a sideways wind gust; in contrast, roll torques are only stabilizing at high air gust velocities, due to non-linear coupling effects. The combined CFD simulations, robot experiments, and stability modeling help explain why the majority of flying insects exhibit wing-beats with positive stroke dihedral and can be used to develop more stable and robust flapping-wing Micro-Air-Vehicles.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2022.820363/fullfruit fly (Drosophila)MAV (micro air vehicle)flapping wingCFDaerodynamiccoupling |
| spellingShingle | Diana A. Olejnik Florian T. Muijres Matěj Karásek Leonardo Honfi Camilo Christophe De Wagter Guido C.H.E. de Croon Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts Frontiers in Robotics and AI fruit fly (Drosophila) MAV (micro air vehicle) flapping wing CFD aerodynamic coupling |
| title | Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts |
| title_full | Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts |
| title_fullStr | Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts |
| title_full_unstemmed | Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts |
| title_short | Flying Into the Wind: Insects and Bio-Inspired Micro-Air-Vehicles With a Wing-Stroke Dihedral Steer Passively Into Wind-Gusts |
| title_sort | flying into the wind insects and bio inspired micro air vehicles with a wing stroke dihedral steer passively into wind gusts |
| topic | fruit fly (Drosophila) MAV (micro air vehicle) flapping wing CFD aerodynamic coupling |
| url | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2022.820363/full |
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