TECHNI CAL ARTI CL E

Development of Flexible Wings and Flapping Mechanism

with Integrated Electronic Control System, for Micro Air
Vehicle Research
H. Yusoff
1
, M.Z. Abdullah
1
, M.A. Mujeebu
1
, and K.A. Ahmad
2
1 School of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
2 School of Aerospace Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
Keywords
Micro Air Vehicle, Bat Wing, Four-bar Linkage
Mechanism, Electronic Control System, Lift
and Drag, Flapping Angle
Correspondence
H. Yusoff,
School of Mechanical Engineering,
Universiti Sains Malaysia,
Engineering Campus,
14300 Nibong Tebal,
Penang, Malaysia
Email: ham_mid2003@hotmail.com
Received: September 22, 2010; accepted:
January 6, 2011
doi:10.1111/j.1747-1567.2011.00729.x
Abstract
This paper presents the development of exible wings, apping mechanism,
and integrated electronic control system(ECS) to emulate the bat wing apping
for the ongoing micro air vehicle (MAV) research. Three bat species having
dimensions close to the design requirement of MAV, namely, Mormopterus
Planiceps, Nytophilus Geoffroyi, and Scotorepens Balstoni were selected, and the
average of their physical dimensions was chosen. The commercially available
titanium alloy, Ti 6Al 4V, was used for the wing frame, and the membrane
was made of latex. A four-bar slider-crank mechanism was designed and
fabricated to facilitate the wing apping; ECS controlled the apping frequency
in the real-time mode. The system was tested in open air wind tunnel at
frequency 6 Hz, angle of attack (AOA) 050

, and velocity range 27 ms

1
. The
experimental apping angle which is compared with the theoretical apping
angle was obtained fromthe analytical kinematic model. The mean lift and drag
coefcients were also measured and the results were found to be excellent.
Compared to the manual control and measurement of apping frequency,
the proposed ECS demonstrates efcient control and accurate measurement.
Moreover, the tedious procedure involved in the repeated calibrations for the
manual system is totally eliminated by ECS.
Introduction
Micro air vehicles (MAVs) are a class of unmanned
aircraft with a maximum size limited to 15 cm,
capable of operating speeds of 15 m/s or less. They
are used in military and defense tasks such as
over-the-hill battleeld supervision, bomb damage
assessment, chemical weapon detection, etc. They
have also applications in environmental, agriculture,
wildlife, and trafc-monitoring. Fixed, apping, and
rotary wing MAVs are all viable candidates for these
missions. An excellent review on this topic was
provided by Shyy et al.
1
The rapid advancement
in MAV design has driven the researches on ight
of insects, birds, and bats. Wings of thin and very
exible membranes are unique to ying and gliding
mammals, such as bats, ying squirrels, and sugar
gliders, and these animals exhibit extraordinary
ight capabilities with respect to maneuvering and
agility that are not observed in other species of
comparable size. Bat wings are characterized by their
sufciently exible bones supporting very compliant
and anisotropic wing membranes; the unique features
of bat wing as a promising candidate for MAVhas been
well established, as outlined by Swartz et al.
2
The
founding researches on bat ight were summarized by
Norberg
3
who studied the kinematics, aerodynamics,
and energetics of the long-eared bat Plecotus auritus in
slow horizontal ight.
Proper mimicking of the biological wing and
its apping is a challenging task in the study
of aerodynamics of exible skin apping wings.
Moreover, an integrated electronic system to control
and monitor the apping frequency is desirable as
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 25
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
it will provide more exibility in measurements.
Many researchers have developed different types of
wings and apping systems for diverse applications.
An outline of the previous works on wing design,
apping mechanism, and control system is presented
as follows.
Pornsin-sirirak et al.
4
developed MEMS-based
wing technology using titanium-alloy metal as
wing frame and poly-monochloro-para-xylylene
(Parylene-C) as membrane. They studied the
unsteady-state aerodynamics of various types of
MEMS-based and other wings. Finally, they
built a lightweight, palm-sized apping-wing MAV
(FWMAV) which was demonstrated successfully. Kim
and Han
5
proposed a smart apping wing with a
macro-ber composites (MFC) actuator to investigate
the aerodynamic characteristics related to the birds
and ornithopters. The membrane was made of PVC.
The camber of the wing could be changed by using
the MFCactuator to enhance the aerodynamic perfor-
mance of the wing. It was shown that the deformation
of the wing surface generated by the MFC was suf-
cient to control the lift and thrust, and the lift could
be increased by 20% when the MFC was actuated. In
a series of investigations to mimic the mammalian
ight, Galvao et al.
6
and Song et al.
7
studied the
aerodynamic performance of thin compliant wings.
They found that, in comparison with rigid wings,
compliant wings have higher lift slope, maximum
lift coefcients, and delayed stall to higher angles of
attack. The wings were fabricated with stainless-steel
frame and latex membrane. Lin et al.
8
developed ex-
ible wings with carbon ber frame and PVC plastic
lm membrane to simulate the apping motion of
birds by means of four-bar linkage mechanism. The
wing motion of hummingbird and hovering insects
was mimicked by McIntosh et al.
9
who devised a
novel mechanism to actuate the wings of a hover-
ing MAV. The mechanism used a single actuator, but
each wing could rotate about two orthogonal axes.
The wings were made of carbon ber frame and
nylon fabric membrane. Nguyen et al.
10,11
presented
the design of a motor-driven apping-wing system
emulated the beetle (Allomyrina dichotoma), in terms
of dimension, apping frequency, and wing kinemat-
ics. Carbon ber was used as wing frame and kapton
lm as membrane. Hu et al.
12,13
studied the aerody-
namic benets of exible membrane wings for the
development of FWMAV. The time-averaged lift and
drag generation of two exible membrane wings with
different skin exibility (i.e., a exible nylon wing
and a more exible latex wing) were compared with
those of a rigid wing. The rigid wing was found to have
better lift production performance for apping ight
in general. The latex wing was found to have the best
thrust generation performance for apping ight. The
less exible nylon wing, which has the best aerody-
namic performance for soaring ight applications, was
found to be the worst for apping ight applications.
The success of a apping mechanism lies in its abil-
ity to facilitate maximum degrees of freedom while
emulating the actual biological wing; maintaining
symmetry and wide angle of apping are some of
the challenging tasks. With a basic four-bar linkage
mechanism, researchers have tackled this issue in a
variety of fashions. Baskar and Muniappan
14
com-
pared three apping mechanisms namely sliding link,
movable hinge, and xed hinge, and found that the
xed hinge mechanism was free from unsymmet-
rical apping and strut movement. In a study on
the energetics of FWMAV, Madangopal et al.
15
used
single-crank mechanism with springs to duplicate the
ying of insects; similar mechanism without springs
was used by Lin et al.
8
Use of lightweight piezo com-
posite actuator (LIPCA) with the four-bar linkage was
reported by Syaifuddin et al.
16
The limited displace-
ment with a natural frequency of 9 Hz produced by
the LIPCA was transformed into large apping angle
by the four-bar linkage system.
The lack of apping symmetry encountered in the
single-crank four-bar system was rectied by the use
of double crank in series, as proposed by McIntosh
et al.
9
However, Conn et al.
17
demonstrated that the
apping angle could be improved further by using
double crank in parallel. Employing a slider with
single crank was another way of maintaining apping
symmetry, and this technique was simpler compared
to the use of double crank. Recently, Fenelon and
Furukawa
18
have proposed a modied slider-crank
mechanism, in which a rotary actuator was employed
for the spherical joint, in order to enhance the
degrees of freedom. As remarkable contribution to
MAV research, Wood and coworkers
1923
and Sitti
24
developed and analyzed four-bar linkage apping-
wing system inspired by the thoracic mechanism of
dipteran insects. A deviation from the basic four-
bar linkage was the use of Scotch Yoke linkage
mechanism, as proposed by Galinski and Zbikowski
25
and Nguyen et al.
10,11
As far as the control and monitoring of apping
frequency is concerned, almost all researchers have
relied on external means such as oscilloscope, optical
sensor, and high-speed camera, which could measure
the frequency for a given setting. It would be more
convenient and effective to have an in-built electronic
system to measure as well as control the apping
26 Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics
H. Yusoff et al. Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism
frequency. In the present study which is focused
on the aerodynamics of exible apping wings for
FWMAV, the apping of bat wing is emulated
by the use of motor-driven four-bar single-crank
slider mechanism. A microcontroller-based frequency
measuring and controlling system is also developed
and incorporated into the apping mechanism. In
order to compare the aerodynamic performance,
thick and thin exible wings are fabricated with
titanium alloy frame and latex membrane. The
ultimate objective of this study was to analyze the
effect of membrane exibility on the aerodynamic
performance of apping wings for MAVs. However,
this paper covers the details of development of
wings, apping mechanism, and the electronic control
system (ECS); the analysis part will be presented in
our future article.
Materials and Methods
Wing development
Obtaining the wing specications
While emulating the bat wing, especially for FWMAV
applications, scaling analysis is very important to
obtain the proper wing dimensions and aerodynamic
features. With reference to the data provided by
Bullen et al.,
26
for the present study, only three bat
species having dimensions close to the design require-
ment of FWMAV were selected, namely, Mormopterus
Planiceps, Nytophilus Geoffroyi, and Scotorepens Balstoni,
whose physical and kinematic features are summa-
rized in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. Considering the
average of the three wings, the values for physical
Table 1 Wing bat parameters of three species and present study
Bat species
Wing
span
(mm)
Wing
area
(m
2
)
Aspect
ratio
Wing
loading
(N/m
2
)
Wing
mass
(g)
Mormopterus planiceps 263.5 0.010 7.3 8.7 8.3
Nyctophilus geoffroyi 263.1 0.012 5.7 4.7 5.8
Scotorepens balstoni 266.0 0.011 6.3 7.0 7.9
Present study 270 0.013 4.95 4.61 6.0
Table 2 Flight parameters of three species and present study
Bat species
Speed range
(m s
1
)
Frequency
(Hz)
Flapping angle
(

)
Mormopterus planiceps 2.19.4 9.34 1.38 40.68 10.15
Nyctophilus geoffroyi 0.87.2 10.94 0.96 43.92 16.44
Scotorepens balstoni 3.35.0 11.31 0.67 35.00 8.29
Present study 27 69 60
parameters such as wing span, aspect ratio, wing area,
wing loading, and wing mass have been approximated
as 270 mm, 0.013 m
2
, 4.95, 4.61 N m
2
, and 6 g,
respectively. Similarly, the kinematic characteristics
such as wind speed, apping frequency, and apping
angle are chosen as 27 m s
1
, 69 Hz, and 60 3

.
Wing frame and membrane
The wing frame materials previously used include
titanium alloy,
3
and composites such as epoxy
reinforced carbon,
8
graphite epoxy,
5
carbon rod,
17
carbon ber,
10,11
and glass ber.
13
Titanium alloy
is widely used for aircraft gas turbine disks and
blades as well as airframe structural components that
require strength and high temperature tolerance. It
is light and strong, and can be easily tapered to
vary the thickness of wingspars. Being ductile, it
can also be bent to create wing camber to improve
performance. In addition, the etching process of
titanium alloy can be conducted at room temperature
and yields a reasonable etching rate.
3
In the present
study, the commercially available titanium alloy,
3
Ti 6Al 4V, is used. Wing layouts are developed
from photographs of bat with their wings extended
that are scaled to have a length (R) of 120 mm per
wing. The wing frame has two battens in the cordwise
direction to strengthen the stiffness of the wing and
control the wing deformation during apping. The
thickness of the entire frame is 0.35 mm, and gradual
tapering in width is provided for the frame and
battens, from leading edge to trailing edge, and from
root to tip as shown in Fig. 1.
Next attempt is to develop the exible wing
membrane. Generally, polymers
3,8,5,10,11,16,17
and
elastomers
13
have been used for exible wing mem-
brane. It is well established that, when compared
with the polymers, elastomers exhibit low Youngs
Figure 1 Schematic of the wing frame.
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 27
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
Figure 2 The latex membrane glued on the wing frame.
modulus while maintaining the same range of density
(http://www.grantadesign.com/ashbycharts.htm);
this makes them a better choice for exible wing
membrane. Therefore, latex, a typical elastomer, is
used in the present study, which is glued onto the
frame as shown in Fig. 2. Membranes with thick-
nesses 0.37 mm, 0.28 mm, and 0.13 mm are chosen,
which are named as least exible, exible, and most
exible, respectively.
Flapping mechanism
Four-bar linkage mechanism
A four-bar slider-crank mechanism is designed and
tested to facilitate the sinusoidal apping motion,
with the amplitude adjustable from 40 to 60

.
The design considerations of the mechanism are
light weight, simplicity, rigidity, minimum joints,
harmonic motion, and minimum phase difference
between the wings. Before fabrication, a complete set
of CAD models are developed using SOLIDWORKS-
2007 to ensure an accurate t between parts; all the
views are shown in Fig. 3. The apper is 56 mm high
and 25 mm long. For the selected apping angle of
60

the lengths of rockers are 10 mm for the output

link, 16.34 mm for the connecting rod, and 5 mm for
the crank.
The linkages and supporting frame of the apper
are made from brass, by means of CNC machine.
The apper is driven by a single DC-micromotor
(Type: 1224A015SR, speed: 901 rpm, manufacturer:
Dr. Fritz Faulhaber GmbH & Co. KG, Germany)
which is attached to the reduction gear and mag-
netic encoder to control the apping frequency. The
output apping frequency (f ) in relation to the input
voltage can be simply calculated by Eq. 1, where S
c
is the motor speed constant, Vis the applied voltage,
and R
g
is the reduction gear ratio. Accordingly, with
the reduction gear ratio of 1:3 and voltage of 15 V,
we can expect a apping frequency of about 75 Hz
without any wing attachment.
f =
S
c
60R
g
V. (1)
Kinematic model
A mathematical model has been developed to study
the kinematics of the mechanism, thereby ensuring
that the apping was symmetric. The governing
equations of the mechanism are as follows:
From Fig. 4, we have the following:
f = a cos
1
+b cos
2
, (2)
c = a sin
1
+b sin
2
. (3)
From Eq. 3,

2
= sin
1
_
a sin
1
b
_
. (4)
The effective distance between B and C (or D) is as
follows:
g = f e. (5)
From symmetry of triangles BMC and BMD, we get
the following:

f
= sin
1
_
g
d
_
. (6)
(a) (b)
Figure 3 (a) Different views of the apping mechanism. (b) Zoomed view at A.
28 Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics
H. Yusoff et al. Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism
Figure 4 The kinematic model of the apping mechanism.
Substituting Eqs. 2 and 5 in 6, we obtain the
following:

f
= sin
1
_
_
_
_
_
a cos
1
+b cos
_
sin
1
_
a sin
1
b
___
e
d
_

_
.
(7)
Using the chain rule, angular velocity can be
expressed as follows:
d
dt
=
a
1
g cos
_
sin
1
+cos
1
tan
_
sin
1
_
a sin
1
b
___
.
(8)
Hence the angular acceleration is
d
2

dt
2
=
_
_
_
_
a
2
1
g
_
_
_
_
cos
1
sin
1
tan
_
sin
1
_
a sin
1
b
__
+
a
b
cos
2

1
cos
2
_
sin
1
_
a sin
1
b
__
_
_
_
_
+sin
_
d
dt
_
2
_

_
cos
. (9)
Electronic control system
System architecture overview
The ECS consists of a microcontroller, motor driver,
DC minimotor with encoder, variable resistor, power
supply, and a personal computer with graphical user
interface (GUI) software. The PIC16F876 microcon-
troller acts as a brain to the system and controls every
input and output. One of the main functions is to
control the speed of the DC minimotor through the
motor driver. A DC power supply is used to provide
15 V which is then converted to 5 V by an LM7805
voltage regulator. The communication to the motor
driver from the microcontroller is accomplished using
pulse width modulation (PWM); the data are then
used by the motor driver (MCP 1404) to control
motor speed detected by the built-in encoder (series
30B20). The encoder helps to measure the actual
speed of the motor, and acts as a feedback to the
system to synchronize the required speed and actual
speed. The output of the encoder is in the form of
pulses (05 V) with a resolution of 10 lines per rev-
olution. Figures 5 and 6 show the block diagram and
prototype, respectively, of the ECS.
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 29
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
Figure 5 ECS block diagram.
Figure 6 ECS prototype board.
PIC16F876 is a 28-pin 8-bit CMOS Flash micro-
controller which contains 256 bytes of EEPROM data
memory, ICSP (In-Circuit Serial Programming), an
ICD, 5 channels of 10-bit analog-to-digital con-
verter (ADC), 2 additional timers, and 2 cap-
ture/compare/PWM functions with 10-bit maximum
resolution. The synchronous serial port can be con-
gured as either three-wire serial peripheral interface
(SPI) or the two-wire inter-integrated circuit (I
2
C)
bus and a universal asynchronous receiver transmit-
ter (USART). The PIC16F876A can be driven at a
maximum clock speed of 20 MHz. In this experiment,
the ADC is set to 8-bit, so that the detectable range is
between 0 and 255 (2
8
= 256). The conversion from
analog voltage to digital bits is shown in
Table 3 Analog voltage to 8-bit of PIC microcontrollers ADC
Analog voltage (V) PIC 8-bit (bit)
0 0
1 51
2 102
3 153
4 204
5 255
Table 3. Since 8-bit is used for ADC, the same
resolution is applied toward the PWM modules. The
frequency of 10 kHz is chosen to match with the
motor driver, hence make the time for 1 cycle equal
to 100 s. Figure 7 shows two different values of
PWM, for 50 and 10% duty cycle. Next, RS232 UART
is used for the serial communication with the personal
computer. The microcontroller can support the baud
rates from 300 up to 57,600 bps. However, at higher
speed, it is more prone to higher percentage of data
transfer error. A 9600 bps baud rate is chosen for this
experiment with driven inverted state. The RS232 is
congured as 8N1, which means eight data bits, no
parity bit, and one stop bit as shown in Fig. 8.
ECS functioning and testing
The operation of the ECS in this apping model is
shown in Fig. 9. The system starts after the power
source has turned on to enable PC serial com-
munication using Windows HyperTerminal (WHT)
software. Before getting connected, the software has
to be congured as a serial RS232 COM terminal,
by setting the port as follows: baud rate = 9600 bps,
data bits = 8, parity = none, stop bits = 1, ow con-
trol = hardware. A modication value ranging from
0.1 to 9.9 needs to be entered into the WHT write-
display space to ensure that connection is established
and there is a handshaking link between system
board and PC. The speed of the motor is adjusted
to the desired value by the potentiometer. The ADC
50% duty cycle
(50 s)
1cycle
(100 s)
10% duty cycle
(10 s)
1 cycle
(100 s)
Figure 7 PWM waveforms of two different duty cycles.
Figure 8 8N1 conguration; eight data bits, no parity bit, and one
stop bit.
30 Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics
H. Yusoff et al. Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism
Figure 9 Flow chart of the ECS functioning.
digital values are then calculated and converted into
PWM values to drive the MCP1404 PWM driver chip,
which runs the motor at variable speeds. The signal
sent to the MCP1404 driver is programmed at a fre-
quency of 10 kHz, with variable PWM duty cycles to
get variable motor speeds. Then the microcontroller
calculates RPS (revolutions per second) value pro-
duced by the magnetic encoder (pulse signal). The
calculated RPS value is then sent and displayed on
the PC via serial COM port in real-time mode. The
process will repeat until the modication values and
potentiometer trim are being changed.
In the open air test section, the pitch angle of
the apping axis, w, with respect to the free stream
velocity V can be changed by adjusting the test mount
which supports the driving part. The analog signal
from strain gauge (load cell) is amplied, digitized,
and conditioned via PCD-300A sensor interface and
linked to the data acquisition board to collect the
frequency signal (x) and transmit the raw data into
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 31
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
computer by using GUI software data acquisition.
The data collection frequency is set at 5000 Hz and
15,000 data points are collected at each test run.
The raw data are smoothed using digital Butterworth
low-pass lter with cut-off frequencies set at 5 Hz and
second order.
The frequency signal from the load cell is matched
with the frequency value obtained by the ECS,
and if any difference is noticed, the ECS facilitates
further adjustments until the difference becomes zero,
ensuring calibration at the required frequency. The
testing of ECS is performed with velocity ranging from
2 to 8 m s
1
and AOA from 0

up to 50

, at 6 Hz. The
schematic and photograph of the experiment setup
are shown in Fig. 10.
Results and Discussion
Flapping angle, angular velocity, and acceleration
Figure 11 shows the sequel images of the wing for one
cycle of apping, captured by high-speed camera, and
Fig. 12 shows the apping angle. The apping angle
obtained from Eq. 7 is compared with the experi-
mental results as shown in Fig. 13. Since the stroke
plane is coplanar with the image, the apping angle
can be measured directly from the image. From
the high-speed camera images, the apping angle is
calculated to be 33

, whereas the theoretical value

is 30

; the difference is attributed to the exibility

of the wing and the small assembly clearance. This
apping angle suits quite well with the bats apping
angle, 3543

as in Table 2.
Equations 29 are solved using Matlab tool,
SIMULINK. Figure 14 shows the angular velocity
and angular acceleration for one cycle of rotation
at 1 Hz. The rotational speed of the motor is
assumed to be constant in the analysis and it
is ensured that the mechanism operates smoothly
without obvious jumps or jerks. The results show a
sinusoidal apping motion. Figure 14(a) shows that
the angular velocity corresponding to the maximum
apping amplitude (30

) is 3.189 rad/s, and the

corresponding angular acceleration is 18.94 rad/s
2
as shown in Fig. 14(b).
Flapping frequency
ECS versus manual control of apping frequency
Manual control of apping wing has disadvantages
of repeatability and need of more time to balance
and calibrate for each experiment, especially for large
AOA and velocity. ECS could tackle this problem
and facilitate accurate measurement and control
of frequency. The comparison of relative errors
with respect to the required frequency value (6 Hz)
estimated without ECS and with ECS is presented
in Fig. 15. The relative error is dened by Eq. 10 as
follows:
E
c
=
s
S
main
100%, (10)
where E
c
is the relative error, s is the difference
between the measured frequency and the required
frequency (S
main
). As shown in Fig. 15(a), in the
absence of ECS, E
c
is within 5%, for velocities 2 to
4 m s
1
, and it shoots up to 2535 % above 4 m s
1
.
The cause of larger E
c
for the load cell is attributed
to the increased air resistance at high AOA resulting
in the reduction of frequency. To minimize this error,
the calibration procedure must be repeated many
times for each experiment; this is time consuming
and tedious. As already mentioned, this problem is
effectively solved by the use of ECS, as is evident
from Fig. 15(b) which shows that E
c
with ECS falls
within the acceptable range of 0.41.8%. Thus, it
is demonstrated that, besides facilitating the control,
the proposed ECS can signicantly contribute to the
accuracy and speed of frequency measurement.
Aerodynamic tests
The aerodynamic force is measured in open air wind
tunnel setup at the free stream velocity of 47 m s
1
.
The Kyowa data acquisition system (PCD 300A
model) and Deltalab sensor cell are used to measure
lift and drag with high precision. The precision of the
force sensor is 0.3% of the full scale (5 N). The data
breeding rate of the load cell is set as 5000 points
per second. About 40,000 points of data are selected
for every apping condition, and integrated them
into time-averaged values of lift and drag coefcients,
C
L mean
(Eq. 11) and C
D mean
(Eq. 12), respectively.
C

(L mean) = L

mean/[(1/2)(V

2
S
], (11)
C

(D mean) = D

mean/[(1/2)(V

2
S
], (12)
where L is the the mean lift force, D the mean drag
force, S the wing platform area, V

the forward ight

speed, and the air density.
Figure 16 shows the variations of C
L mean
and
C
D mean
for frequencies 69 Hz, at AOA 20

. As
expected, C
L mean
and C
D mean
increase dramatically
with increase of frequency and decrease of velocity.
Figure 17 shows the corresponding histories of
apping angle lift and drag coefcients (C
L
and
C
D
, respectively). It is seen that the lift has almost
32 Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics
H. Yusoff et al. Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism
(a)
(b)
Figure 10 (a) Schematic of experiment setup of apping mechanism using ECS and load cell for calibration. (b) The experimental apparatus.
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 33
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
Figure 11 Sequel images of the wing for one cycle of apping.
Figure 12 Flapping angle observed by high-speed camera.
Crank angle, Degree (One cycle)
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

A
n
g
u
l
a
r

d
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t
,

D
e
g
r
e
e
-40
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
Theoretical
Experiment
Figure 13 Comparison of experimental and theoretical apping angle.
same frequency as the apping angle and drag signal
is twice the apping frequency. At the beginning
of the downstroke (1), the lift force is maximum,
and decreases to the minimum near the end of the
downstroke (2). In general, the lift during downstroke
is higher than that during upstroke. The values of
C
L
and C
D
are in reasonable agreement with those
obtained by Norberg
3
for the low-speed ier P. auritus.
Crank angle, Degree (One cycle)
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
A
n
g
u
l
a
r

v
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

(
r
a
d
s
-
1
)
-4
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
4
(a)
(b)
Theoretical
Crank angle, Degree (One cycle)
A
n
g
u
l
a
r

a
c
c
l
e
r
a
t
i
o
n
,
(
r
a
d
s
-
2
)
-30
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
Theoretical
Figure 14 Variation of angular velocity and angular acceleration with
crank angle. (a) Flapping angular velocity versus crank angle. (b) Flapping
angular acceleration versus crank angle.
Conclusion
As part of the ongoing research on aerodynamics of
MAV, an efcient and accurate exible apping wing
mechanism is developed and tested. The introduction
of integrated ECS to control and measure the apping
frequency is the major contribution in the present
work. Three bat species having dimensions close to
the design requirement of MAV, namely, M. Planiceps,
34 Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics
H. Yusoff et al. Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0
10
20
30
40 X
D
a
t
a
3D Graph 7
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
X
D
a
t
a
3D Graph 5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
-20
-10
0
10
20
30
40
(a) (b)
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0
10
20
30
40
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
a
g
e

o
f

e
r
r
o
r

(
%
)
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
,
m
s
-
1
AoA, Degree
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0
10
20
30
40
P
e
r
c
e
n
t
a
g
e

o
f

e
r
r
o
r

(
%
)
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y
,
m
s
-
1
AoA, Degree
Figure 15 Percentage of error in frequency distribution (a) without ECS and (b) with ECS.
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
(a) (b)
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
7.0
6.0
6.5
7.0
7.5
8.0
8.5
9.0
C
L

m
e
a
n
V
el oci t y
, m
s
-1 F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
,
H
z
0.4
0.6
1.0
1.2
1.4
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
6.5
7.0
6.0
6.5
7.0
7.5
8.0
8.5
9.0
C
D

m
e
a
n
V
e
lo
c
ity
,
m
s
-1
F
re
q
u
e
n
c
y
,
H
z
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Figure 16 The variations of C
L mean
and C
D mean
for frequencies 69 Hz, at AOA 20

.
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20
-60
-40
-20
0
20
40
60
2
3
5
4
Time (sec)
F
l
a
p
p
i
n
g

a
n
g
l
e
,

D
e
g
r
e
e
Flapping angle
Instantaneous Lift
Instantaneous Drag
1
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2.0
2.2
C
L
a
n
d

C
D
V=6ms
-1
, F=9Hz,AoA=20
0
Figure 17 Instantaneous apping angle, lift and drag coefcients.
N. Geoffroyi, and S. Balstoni, are selected, and their
average physical and kinematic features are chosen.
The titanium alloy, Ti 6Al 4V, is used for the
wing frame, and latex for the membrane. A four-bar
slider-crank mechanism is designed and fabricated
to facilitate the wing apping. The major issues
associated with the traditional means of controlling
and measuring the apping frequency, such as
repeated calibration, large time consumption, and
measurement inaccuracy at higher AOA and velocity
are successfully rectied by the proposed ECS; the
relative error is reduced from 2535% to 0.41.8%.
The experimental apping angles are well matched
with those obtained from the theoretical kinematic
model. This system would be highly efcient for the
study of aerodynamic characteristics of FWMAVs.
Future work may be done to improve the ECS by
introducing wireless communication for the ECS
to the apping mechanism, and to reduce it to
a microchip.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Ministry of
Technology and Innovation, Malaysia, and Universiti
Experimental Techniques 37 (2013) 2537 2011, Society for Experimental Mechanics 35
Bat Wing Flapping Mechanism H. Yusoff et al.
Sains Malaysia for the nancial support for this
research work. Thanks are also due to Mr. Mohd
Fairuz Zakaria and Mr. M. Khalil Abdullah, for their
valuable assistance in the experiments.
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