POLYMER-BASED FLAPPING-WING ROBOTIC INSECTS: PROGRESSES IN WING FABRICATION, CONCEPTION AND SIMULATION

This paper reports our recent progresses on the concep-tion of polymer-based flapping-wing robotic insect, which involves the design, fabrication and characterization of novel all-polymer wing as well as their aeroelastic simulation. Ac-complished MEMS technology allows the production of ar-tificial wing with complex geometry as well as complete pro-totype with material mimicking the insect one. Key innova-tion of our design is the flexible resonant wing on an active bending mode coupled with passive torsion. Structural op-timizations are reported aiming to increase the wing kine-matics and the associated aerodynamic forces. Simultane-ously to improve prediction and optimization of wing aero-dynamic performance, a novel aeroelastic model is intro-duced using finite element method coupled with the quasi-steady analysis of insect flight. Although only basic wing shapes are here considered, the aeroelastic model exhibits promising capabilities for the evaluation of more realistic wing