Work

Aeromechanics of Hovering Flight in Perturbed Flows: Insights from Computational Models and Animal Experiments

Year: 2017

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: Stability of flapping flight, a natural requirement for flying insects, is one of the major challenges for designing micro aerial vehicles (MAVs). To better understand how a flying insect could stabilize itself during hover, we have employed a fully coupled computational model, which combines the Navier-Strokes equations and the equations of motion in six degrees-of-freedom (NS6DOF) to model the hovering flight of a hawkmoth. These simulations are combined with high-speed videogrammetry experiments on live, untethered hawkmoths flying in quiescent and perturbed flows. The flight videos were used to identify a potential mechanism that could be used by the moth to stabilize its hovering flight; the effectiveness of this mechanism was investigated using CFD-based simulations and semi-analytic approximations.

Source: AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference

DOI: 10.2514/6.2017-3816

Authors: Chao Zhang, Rajat Mittal, Tyson Hedrick

Institutions: Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Language: English

Topic: Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms

Subfield: Aerospace Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Science Foundation, Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Awards: Collaborative Research: Pteropod Swimming Behavior as a Bio Assay for Ocean Acidification, CAREER: Individual and Group Animal Flight Dynamics, EPRI: Collaborative Research: autoFlutter: Efficient, Waterless Power Plant Cooling, Robusticity and perturbation compensation in animal flight