Towards energy efficiency in micro hovering air vehicles

Authors:
Jayant Ratti;George Vachtsevanos
Affiliations:
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 30332, USA;School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, 30332, USA
Venue:
AERO '11 Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Aerospace Conference
Year:
2011

Citing 0
Cited 2

Inventing a Biologically Inspired, Energy Efficient Micro Aerial Vehicle

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Opportunities and challenges with autonomous micro aerial vehicles

International Journal of Robotics Research

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Abstract

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) have gained a significant amount of research lately, with a number of universities and industry sponsors paving the way with micro flying robots to perform Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Missions. However, much of the work done in VTOL/Hover-Capable MAVs till date has not shown performance improvement in flight endurance and payload capacities. In this paper we introduce and detail the Energy Dynamics of a novel Quad-Wing MAV (QV) design and illustrate the improvement in-flight energy consumption, directed towards higher payload capacities and longer flight times. Additionally we show that independent wing control of the QV generates all 6 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) flight maneuvers. By the use of passive elastic elements, we can produce resonant flapping, generating lift and further improvements in energy savings.