Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
DESIGN AND KINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF A FLAPPING WING MECHANISM FOR OPTIMIZED BIO-INSPIRED UAV
Submission Author:
Maurício Menegatti Andrade , MS
Co-Authors:
Maurício Menegatti Andrade, Mariana Finamor Frota Saldanha de Freitas, Augusto Bornschlegell, Rodrigo Borges Santos, Douglas Bueno
Presenter: Rodrigo Borges Santos
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-0790
Abstract
Biomimetics is a science that seeks to emulate natural systems and phenomena in order to solve human problems and innovate in engineering. Given that context, biomimetic mechanisms are those whose function is inspired by some natural parallel. Relatedly, Flapping Wing Air Vehicles, or FWAVs, are biomimetic models designed to fly. However, in contrast to the already common and known models of aircraft, like airplanes, helicopters and drones, FWAVs mimic with greater fidelity their biological counterparts’ characteristics. These mechanisms aim to replicate the capacity of insects and birds to lift themselves and move through air with agility, using only their wings as propulsion. In that way, FWAVs dismiss the need for conventional aerial propulsion, such as propellers and jet engines. Taking advantage of their wings’ lift, these models can be a much more versatile aircraft design, allowing swift, agile and smooth movement, alongside implementations at a significantly smaller scale. In tandem with their potential, FWAVs present a great engineering challenge, mainly on the context of energy efficiency, weight reduction and wear of the mechanical parts. With those needs in mind, this article presents the mathematical modelling of an Ornithopter (a biomimetic mechanism inspired by a birds’ wing) using two mirrored four-bar mechanisms and a simple single crank and double rocker system. Such mechanism, despite its simplicity, has the disadvantage of asynchrony between its wings. Therefore, our focus on this work is optimizing the design parameters to minimize asynchrony and achieve a general performance improvement, following guidelines from existing literature. The use of complex numbers and Euler notation, sometimes combined with vector notation, enabled further simplifications to the conventional mathematical model of the four-bar linkage. That way, a more intuitive and concise implementation was possible using Python.
Keywords
Flapping Wing Air Vehicles, Mechanism, Optimization, Biomimetics
