One of the challenges in Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicle (FWMAV) is to make the wing tip always trace a flat figure-eight whilst ensuring the quality of the robot remains as light as possible. This paper optimized an existing mechanism so that the motion of the wingtip matched the actual flight state of the insect with a single-degree-of-freedom drive. The kinematic model of the FWMAV mechanism was constructed. Based on non-linear programming, the length ratio of the key part of the mechanism was obtained, meanwhile, theoretical calculations were confirmed by ADAMS simulations. The optimized Insect-like Flapping-Wing Mechanism had a satisfied performance with an upward flapping of 60°, a downward angle of 24.99° and a swing angle of 10.71°, whose wingtip exhibited an “8” shape.

Zhuolin Li. Optimization of an Insect-like Flapping Wing Mechanism. International Journal of New Developments in Engineering and Society (2023) Vol.7, Issue 4: 30-36. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJNDES.2023.070406.

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