Introduction to Micro Aerial Vehicles
Lung‐Jieh Yang, Balasubramanian Esakki · 2021
The flapping wing is a bionic concept where humans learned from birds to design flying machines in the early days. Looking back at the century-old evolution of modern aeronautical engineering, one can see tremendous technological development, be it propeller power to jet power, speed, payload, or travel range. Basically, in response to air transportation needs, civil-aviation aircrafts are quite big and need long landing/takeoff lanes. The invention of flapping wing micro-air-vehicles (FWMAVs) attempts to make the aircraft&s;s small and compact. The areas of application have also widened to surveillance in a battlefield and hazardous terrain. Similar to unmanned air vehicles (UAVs or drones), FWMAVs extend the reach and thus the physical presence of human beings. This book aims to enable one to study the design, construction, and working of FWMAVs. This chapter introduces the flapping motion and explains the basic concepts from fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, flight mechanics, and scale laws for a better understanding of the FWMAVs.