TY - GEN
T1 - Clapping wing nano air vehicle using piezoelectric T-beam actuators
AU - Mateti, Kiron
AU - Kommepalli, Hareesh K.R.
AU - Tadigadapa, Srinivas A.
AU - Rahn, Christopher D.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Clapping wing air vehicles are inspired by the Weis-Fogh clap and fling mechanism used by certain insects, where opposing wings almost touch during part of the flap cycle, spawning vortex structures that increase thrust. Current vehicles cannot be scaled to Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) dimensions because they use electromagnetic motors, gears, and linkages that are difficult to fabricate and have poor efficiency at the sub-millimeter scale. This paper develops a novel NAV that uses piezoelectric T-beam actuators that are monolithically fabricated and exhibit unimorph behavior. A hinge and lever wing mechanism amplifies the small actuator displacements to produce large wing motions. A four wing, clapping NAV is designed, fabricated, and experimentally shown to provide a wing stroke angle of approximately 35°at 1 Hz.
AB - Clapping wing air vehicles are inspired by the Weis-Fogh clap and fling mechanism used by certain insects, where opposing wings almost touch during part of the flap cycle, spawning vortex structures that increase thrust. Current vehicles cannot be scaled to Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) dimensions because they use electromagnetic motors, gears, and linkages that are difficult to fabricate and have poor efficiency at the sub-millimeter scale. This paper develops a novel NAV that uses piezoelectric T-beam actuators that are monolithically fabricated and exhibit unimorph behavior. A hinge and lever wing mechanism amplifies the small actuator displacements to produce large wing motions. A four wing, clapping NAV is designed, fabricated, and experimentally shown to provide a wing stroke angle of approximately 35°at 1 Hz.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77953741695&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1115/SMASIS2009-1317
DO - 10.1115/SMASIS2009-1317
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:77953741695
SN - 9780791848975
T3 - Proceedings of the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems 2009, SMASIS2009
SP - 631
EP - 637
BT - Proceedings of the ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems 2009, SMASIS2009
T2 - 2009 ASME Conference on Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems, SMASIS2009
Y2 - 21 September 2009 through 23 September 2009
ER -