Towards the Long-Endurance Flight of an Insect-Inspired, Tailless, Two-Winged, Flapping-Wing Flying Robot

A hover-capable insect-inspired flying robot that can remain long in the air has shown its potential use for both confined indoor and outdoor applications to complete assigned tasks. In this letter, we report improvements in the flight endurance of our 15.8 g robot, named KUBeetle-S, using a low-vol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE robotics and automation letters 2020-10, Vol.5 (4), p.5059-5066
Main Authors: Phan, Hoang Vu, Aurecianus, Steven, Au, Thi Kim Loan, Kang, Taesam, Park, Hoon Cheol
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitude control
Attitude stability
Biologically-inspired robots
biomimetics
DC motors
Endurance
Flapping wings
flapping-wing micro air vehicles
flight endurance
Flight tests
Force
hovering
Insects
Lift
Low voltage
Magnetometers
Maneuvers
Robots
Servomotors
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Summary:A hover-capable insect-inspired flying robot that can remain long in the air has shown its potential use for both confined indoor and outdoor applications to complete assigned tasks. In this letter, we report improvements in the flight endurance of our 15.8 g robot, named KUBeetle-S, using a low-voltage power source. The robot is equipped with a simple but effective control mechanism that can modulate the stroke plane for attitude stabilization and control. Due to the demand for extended flight, we performed a series of experiments on the lift generation and power requirement of the robot with different stroke amplitudes and wing areas. We show that a larger wing with less inboard wing area improves the lift-to-power ratio and produces a peak lift-to-weight ratio of 1.34 at 3.7 V application. Flight tests show that the robot employing the selected wing could hover for 8.8 minutes. Moreover, the robot could perform maneuvers in any direction, fly outdoors, and carry payload, demonstrating its ability to enter the next phase of autonomous flight.
ISSN:2377-3766
2377-3766
DOI:10.1109/LRA.2020.3005127