Flapping Wing Micro-Air Vehicle

Summary

Humans have achieved flight, yet birds and insects still surpass man-made aircraft in agility and control. The Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (FWMAV) team seeks to uncover how nature achieves such mastery. By studying creatures like hummingbirds and dragonflies, engineers analyze the unsteady aerodynamics and nonlinear mechanisms that enable efficient, stable flight.

FWMAV’s small, agile, and hovering capabilities have applications in law enforcement, defense, and scientific research. The project investigates the physics behind flapping-wing flight to design innovative aerial systems.

Current Work / Recent Updates

Subteams

Alpha Quadflapper: Optimizing a Quadflapper that is robust enough to perform maneuvers that are critical to showcasing the flapper.
Gamma Quadflapper: Creating a “framework” that allows for the rapid prototyping of robust Gamma Quadflapper iterations.
Novel 1 - X-Wing: Creating a Variable-Frame-Angle Quadflapper drone that can take advantage of theoretical efficiency benefits.
Novel 2 - Single Wing: Optimization of a true Micro-Air-Vehicle (<50 grams), that can utilize theoretical efficiencies during gliding flight.
Novel 3 - Ornithopter: Optimizing an Ornithopter-Style Flapping Vehicle to explore potential avenues of this Novel configuration.
Wing Investigation: Exploring a new type of wing design that allows for a higher thrust to weight ratio drone.
Flight Controller: Providing teams with a customizable flight controller specialized for their needs.
Wind Tunnel: Developing systems to visualize and analyze airflow behavior for aerodynamic research and testing.

Team Structure

This year, the team has many flappers ready to be put to the test. The goal of many teams is to optimize their flappers for controlled flight. Last year we received a Dean's Choice Award and have our poster published here. This award was mainly due to our ability to demonstrate promising flight from our Gamma Quadflapper and Alpha Quadflapper.

Our website here has picture and videos demonstrating what each sub teams flapper looks like!

Project Media

Project Poster