A Simulation Environment for Aerodynamic Analysis and Design of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) employing flapping wings are increasingly gaining attention due to their potential ability to hover in a controlled manner. There has been a growing interest in flapping wings as an unconventional means of integrating lift, propulsion and control. The overall proposed effort will be aimed at building a fundamental knowledge base for the unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) including the newer “Nano” subclass called the NAVs. The proposed work will have two major components: (a) simulation and design environment based on an advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver, and (b) experimental effort to validate the simulations and to guide model development. The primary objective is to develop and validate a simulation environment with high-fidelity modeling of flapping-wing MAV flight physics. Specifically, we aim to study the fluid physics associated with low Reynolds number flapping wings, including the fluid/structure interaction and flight mechanism problems, to facilitate the design of effective high-bandwidth control of wing beat kinematics for MAVs. The end product of the Phase II effort will be a high-fidelity simulation and design framework suitable for MAVs.