An experimental research about the characteristics of thrust and power of FMAV

Aiming at the characteristics of flapping-wing MAV (FMAV) wind tunnel experiment which has more variables to be controlled and measured in a dynamic testing environment, a flapping machine is designed for the experiment especially. Beyond the accurate control of flapping amplitude and flapping frequency, the flapping machine also integrates the measurements of instantaneous flapping angle and input power. With the flapping machine, a set of control and measure system to FMAV wind tunnel experiment was built, which realizes the measurement functions of aerodynamic forces flapping angle and input power etc. Based on the system, an experiment about the research of thrust and power characteristics of FMAV is carried on, in which the thrust and power characteristics at different flapping frequencies and different flapping amplitudes are mainly focused on. Within the scope of this study, the experiment result shows increasing flapping frequency and flapping amplitude has a good advantage to thrust generating, but that comes at the price of a higher power consumption; as St increasing, the thrust and power grow as a J-shaped curve, which means the higher the St is, the faster the thrust and power increase.