Wing-based Torque Generation for COLIBRI

Abstract:
This study describes design, development and flight tests of a novel wing-based control mechanism to generate control torque for a hovering flapping wing robot (known as Colibri). The proposed method generates torques around the three body axes by modifying the wing kinematics while minimizing the associated cross coupling. To achieve this, two different architectures of series and parallel mechanisms are introduced and verified by measuring the control torque characteristics. Finally the efficacy of the proposed method is explored by flight experiments.