Towards an Autonomous Robotic Dragonfly: At-Scale Lift Expertiemts Modeling Dragonfly Forewings
Peter A. K. Szabo, Gabriele M. T. D'Eleuterio
Abstract
We report on lift experiments conducted at scale for an artificial platform mimicking the dragonfly species: Sympetrum sanguineum. The platform, as well as the lift sensor, was custom designed and built. The flapping mechanism consisted of a piezoelectric bending-beam actuator, transmission using carbon-fiber elements and polymide-film joints, and wings constructed of polyester film with carbon-fiber support structure. The flapping kinematics of the Sympetrum san-guineum was replicated as closely as possible although only a pair of forewings were used in these experiments. The lift generated, when accounting for the addition of a pair of hindwings, is sufficient to allow for the hovering of a real-life dragonfly. The results, the first at-scale fully transient measurements of artificial dragonfly forewings, show that the lift curves quantitatively as well as qualitatively validate existing 2D and 3D computer simulations of dragonfly forewings.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2018_towardsanautonom,
title = {Towards an Autonomous Robotic Dragonfly: At-Scale Lift Expertiemts Modeling Dragonfly Forewings},
author = {Peter A. K. Szabo and Gabriele M. T. D'Eleuterio},
booktitle = {IROS 2018},
year = {2018}
}