A Bio-inspired Sensing Approach to in-Gust Flight of Flapping Wing MAVs

Flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAVs) are known for their flight agility and maneuverability. However, their in-gust flight performance and stability is still inferior to their biological counterparts. To this end, a simplified in-gust dynamic model, which could capture the main gust effects on FWMAVs, has been identified with real in...

Thermistor-based airflow sensing on a flapping wing micro air vehicle

Flow sensing exists widely in nature to help animals perform certain tasks. It has also been widely adopted in engineering applications with different types of sensing instrumentation. In particular, in the field of aerospace engineering, airflow sensing is crucial to vehicle state evaluation and flight control. This project surveys the key...

Wing deformation measurements of the DelFly II in different flight conditions

This study investigates the wing deformation of the flapping-wing micro air vehicle (MAV) DelFly II in various flight configurations. Experiments were carried out with the MAV tethered in a windtunnel test section. To determine the best suited measurement approach, a trade-off study was carried out which showed that a point tracking approach...

Autonomous Door and Corridor Traversal with a 20-Gram Flapping Wing MAV by Onboard Stereo Vision

Autonomous flight of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles (FWMAVs) is a major challenge in the field of robotics, due to their light weight and their flapping-induced body motions. An FWMAV is presented weighing a mere 20 g while all its sensors and processing for autonomous flight are onboard. The navigation is based on a 4-g stereo vision camera...

Intelligent Flapping Wing Control: Reinforcement Learning for the DelFly

Flight control of the DelFly is challenging, because of its complex dynamics and variability due to manufacturing inconsistencies. Machine Learning algorithms can be used to tackle these challenges. A Policy Gradient algorithm is used to tune the gains of a Proportional-Integral controller using Reinforcement Learning. Furthermore, a novel...

Attitude control- and stabilisation moment generation of the DelFly using Wing Tension Modulation

Model identification of a flapping wing micro aerial vehicle

Different flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAV) have been developed for academic (Harvard’s RoboBee), military (Israel Aerospace Industries’ Butterfly) and technology demonstration (Aerovironment’s NanoHummingBird) purposes. Among these, theDelFly II is recognized as one of themost successful configurations of FWMAV, with a broad flight...

The Exploring DelFly: How to increase the indoor explored area of the DelFly Explorer by means of computationally efficient routing decisions?

Small robots, such as Micro Aerial Vehicles, form an increasingly popular field of interests in research, industry and the consumer market. The autonomous capabilities of these systems keep evolving and one of the main research goals is to reach full autonomy. However, this is often achieved at the cost of growing hardware demands. In this study...

Aerodynamic Characterization of ‘DelFly Micro’ in Forward Flight Configuration by Force Measurements and Flow Field Visualization

This study explores the flow structures and unsteady force generation mechanisms of a flapping-wing micro air vehicle ‘DelFly Micro’ in forward flight configuration. Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (Stereo-PIV) measurements were performed to acquire three dimensional flow fields in the wake. Six components of forces and moments were...

System Identification with Multivariate Multiplex Splines

A new type of multivariate spline, based on tensor-product splines, is introduced and applied for function approximation purposes. An algorithm for system identification using these multiplex splines is developed and validated on DelFly II flight tests data.

Vortex Formation and Force Generation Mechanisms of the DelFly II in Hovering Flight

This paper addresses the unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms in the hovering flight of the DelFly II flapping-wing Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (Stereo-PIV) were carried out around the wings at a high framing rate. Thrust-force was measured to investigate the relation between the vortex dynamics and the...

Vortex Formation and Force Generation Mechanisms of the DelFly II in Hovering Flight

This paper addresses the unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms in the hovering flight of the DelFly II flapping-wing Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (Stereo-PIV) were carried out around the wings at a high framing rate. Thrust-force was measured to investigate the relation between the vortex dynamics and the...

Detective dragonfly

The latest camera-toting flying spy and aid worker to come from TU Delft, the Delfly Micro, almost fits into an empty cigarette pack. This summer the micro air vehicle, which flies just like a dragonfly, flapped its wings for the first time.

Flapping micro plane watches where it goes

In a time span of only ten weeks, a team of eleven highly dedicated students have managed to design a unique flapping miniature aircraft, named DelFly. The aircraft can hover almost motionless in one spot and fly at considerable speed as well while being more stable and less vulnerable than a helicopter. DelFly, only weighing 15 to 21 grammes,...