A Sub-100 mg Electromagnetically Driven Insect-inspired Flapping-wing Micro Robot Capable of Liftoff and Control Torques
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Journal of Bionic Engineering http://www.springer.com/journal/42235
A Sub-100 mg Electromagnetically Driven Insect-inspired Flapping-wing Micro Robot Capable of Liftoff and Control Torques Modulation Chenyang Wang, Weiping Zhang*, Yang Zou, Ran Meng, Jiaxin Zhao, Mingchen Wei National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Micro/Nano Fabrication, School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Abstract Inspired by the unique, agile and efficient flapping flight of insects, we present a novel sub-100 mg, electromagnetically driven, tailless, flapping-wing micro robot. This robot utilizes two optimized electromagnetic actuators placed back to back to drive two wings separately, then kinematics of each wing can be independently controlled, which gives the robot the ability to generate all three control torques of pitch, roll and yaw for steering. To quantify the performance of the robot, a simplified aerodynamic model is used to estimate the generated lift and torques, and two customized test platforms for lift and torque measurement are built for this robot. The mean lift generated by the robot is measured to be proportional to the square of the input voltage amplitude. The three control torques are measured to be respectively proportional to three decoupled parameters of the control voltages, therefore the modulation of three control torques for the robot is independent, which is helpful for the further controlled flight. All these measured results fit well with the calculated results of the aerodynamic model. Furthermore, with a total weight of 96 mg and a wingspan of 3.5 cm, this robot can generate sufficient lift to take off. Keywords: insect-inspired, insect-scale, micro robot, FMAV, electromagnetic actuation Copyright © The author(s) 2020.
1 Introduction In order to imitate the efficient and agile tailless flight of insects. Researchers have been creating insect inspired Flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicles (FMAV) over the past decades, and several motor driven FMAVs are reported to achieve controlled flight[1–7]. However, limited by the size of the motor and the complex transmission, these FMAVs weigh around 20 g with the size close to the human palm, which is far more than real insects. To be more similar to insects, some researchers have been focusing on the research of the insect-scale tailless FMAVs and several studies have successfully demonstrated liftoff[8–12]. Unlike the rotary displacement output of the motor, these insect-scale FMAVs use reciprocating actuators to mimic the contraction of insect muscles, which can realize the flapping of the wings through a simpler transmission mechanism[8,10–12] or even without transmission[9]. However, the simpler mechanical structures increases the difficulty of the control torques modulation for steering and the follow-up controlled flight. Inspired by the flight mechan*Corresponding author: Weiping Zhang E-mail: [email protected]
isms and control strategies of hovering insects, a novel contr
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