Experimental research of flapping-wing propulsion for micro air vehicles

In order to investigate the micro flapping-wing's thrust and propulsive efficiency, a micro flapping-wing wind tunnel experimental system has been set up. A high-sensitivity balance with six components, a flapping angle sensor, a new flapping driving mechanism, a programmable electrical source and an industrial computer in the experimental system were adopted. The LabView software based on virtual instrument (VI) was used to centralize the control of the hardware mentioned above and to deal with the experimental parameters. The factors for thrust generation and propulsive efficiency of micro flapping-wing, such as wind speed, flapping frequency, flapping amplitude, aspect ratio and taper ratio are chosen to be investigated in the wind tunnel experimental system. Based on the experimental results, the main rules of thrust generation and propulsive efficiency of micro flapping-wing are summed up and the results can be used as the reference for the flapping-wing micro air vehicles' design and flight control.