Design and Testing of a Controllable Hinge for a Flapping-wing Micro Air Vehicle

Master thesis (2023)

Authors

T. Moens Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

J.F.L. Goosen Computational Design and Mechanics - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (mentor)
A. Hunt Micro and Nano Engineering - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2023 Tieme Moens
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Published Date

21-04-2023

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Flying drones have been a well-established field of engineering for many years now. With the wave of bio-inspired design came the idea of flapping wing micro air vehicles (FWMAVs). These drones use flapping wings instead of fixed or rotary wings to generate their lift, giving them the potential for agile movement and application in confined spaces. The Atalanta project is one of the groups trying to create a working and efficient FWMAV. While a lot of progress has been made in optimizing the flying motion, the vehicle so far does not have a control mechanism yet. This master thesis seeks to compare methods to achieve this control and propose a final design for a hinge that will be verified experimentally.
A selection of materials and methods for inducing structural changes is tested using analytical models. After picking the most viable options a numerical model seeks to find which of the remaining materials or methods has the highest effectiveness given a set of volume constraints. The most effective design is adapted into a proposed final design for the Atalanta project. The theoretical finalized design fulfills the constraints and functions using a voltage as low as 15 V. To verify the physical principle behind the design experimentally, a few changes are made to the design to allow the construction of a simplistic measurement setup. After the experimental validation it is concluded that the design in its current form is not effective enough to achieve control in the Atalanta FWMAV, and some suggestions are offered to improve the design in future research.