Design optimization and system integration of robotic hummingbird

Jian Zhang, Fan Fei, Zhan Tu, Xinyan Deng

Abstract: Flying animals with flapping wings may best exemplify the astonishing ability of natural selection on design optimization by excelling both stability and maneuverability at insect/hummingbird scale. Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (FWMAV) holds great promise in bridging the performance gap between engineering system and their natural counterparts. Designing and constructing such a system is a challenging problem under stringent size, weight and power (SWaP) constraints. In this work, we presented a systematic approach for design optimization and integration for a hummingbird inspired FWMAV. Our formulation covers aspects of actuation, dynamics, flight stability and control, which was validated by experimental data for both rigid and flexible wings, ranging from low to high wing loading. The optimization yields prototypes with onboard sensors, electronics, and computation units. The prototype flaps at 30Hz to 40Hz, with 7.5 to 12 grams of system weight and 12 to 20 grams of maximum lift. Liftoff was demonstrated with added payloads. Flapping wing platforms with different requirements and scales can now be designed and optimized with minor modifications of proposed formulation.