Design and development of honey bee inspired flapping mechanism for bio-inspired micro air vehicle (MAV)

Over the last two decades, research on the miniaturization of unmanned air vehicles has accelerated exponentially, leading to the evolution of successive generations known as Micro Air Vehicles (MAV) and Nano Air Vehicles (NAV). In view of potential applications where human reach is inaccessible, multiple MAV ideas have been proposed such as fixed wing, flapping wing, and rotary wing. To develop a MAV flight mechanism, researchers idolize biological fliers such as birds and insects. Additionally, a researcher's knowledge of flight biomechanics and aerodynamic fundamentals is essential for assessing design parameters. The present study addresses a brief chronological review of many types of MAVs that have been developed thus far in conjunction with highlighting of numerous bioinspired fliers incorporated in the development of MAVs. In addition, several mechanisms of Flapping Wing MAV are discussed. An inspiration derived from a particular species of honeybee, namely Apis Melifera is utilized to develop an appropriate flapping mechanism taking into consideration the kinematic stability and aerodynamic features. Also, the concerns and challenges during early phase of designing the mechanism and scope of further research are discussed