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Measurement of Force Produced by an Insect-Mimicking Flapping-Wing System

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Abstract

We present a new version of a compact insect-mimicking flapping-wing system driven by a small motor, and suggest two testing approaches to measure the thrust or lift generated by a flapping-wing system. Flapping performance tests show the proposed flapping-wing system, which is powered by an onboard battery (lithium, 3.7 V, 180 mAh), could flap at flapping frequency of 25 Hz, and produce an average thrust or lift of about 3 g. In a wired-flight test under constrained conditions, the flapping-wing system could fly at an average forward velocity of 700 mm·s−1. For measuring the average thrust or lift produced by the flapping-wing system, we propose two testing approaches of wired-flight test and swing test with the aid of a high-speed camera and they are compared with a load cell measurement. The average thrust or lift values from the two proposed approaches agree well with the average thrust or lift values measured by a load cell.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Advanced Technology Fusion, Konkuk University, Seoul, 143-701, South Korea

    Quoc Viet Nguyen, Quang Tri Truong, Hoon Cheol Park & Nam Seo Goo

  2. National Research Laboratory for Biomimetics and Intelligent Microsystems, Konkuk University, Seoul, 143-701, South Korea

    Hoon Cheol Park, Nam Seo Goo & Doyoung Byun

  3. Department of Aerospace Information System Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, 143-701, South Korea

    Doyoung Byun

Authors
  1. Quoc Viet Nguyen
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  2. Quang Tri Truong
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  3. Hoon Cheol Park
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  4. Nam Seo Goo
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  5. Doyoung Byun
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hoon Cheol Park.

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Nguyen, Q.V., Truong, Q.T., Park, H.C. et al. Measurement of Force Produced by an Insect-Mimicking Flapping-Wing System. J Bionic Eng 7 (Suppl 4), S94–S102 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1672-6529(09)60222-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1672-6529(09)60222-5

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