Conceptual Development of Flapping Wing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Technical Note

Abstract

From 1940s to till now the Un-manned aerial vehicles (UAVs) technology has been developed and the birds like UAVs are actively used for spying mission to attack enemies. For example, “Smart Bird†is discovered by FESTO in which the seagull is taken as a concept. The battery consumption is more on these UAVs due to their complicated flapping mechanism. This project deals with an UAV (ornithopter) with morphed wing, in which the wing can be foldable to increase the gliding speed. By using such type of wings, endurance and range can be increased. A laboratory scale ornithopter with flapping wing mechanism is fabricated and tested. The flight speed of almost 45mph can be achieved. This mechanism reduces the battery consumption, for e.g. for 8V input, 4 flaps per second is demonstrated by test. UAV has the ability to attack enemy territory without being identified by the RADAR. Moreover, it can be used to drop bombs from high altitude with precision by using high resolution cameras. To overcome this difficulty, the ornithopter with morphing and flapping mechanism concept is considered in this project.