A Simulation Environment for Aerodynamic Analysis and Design of Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicles

The overall goal of the work conducted in this project was to develop a combined simulation and experimental capability to further the understanding of unsteady wing aerodynamics of flapping micro air vehicles MAVs and to assist in design of such vehicles. The primary objective of the overall effort was to develop and validate a simulation environment with high-fidelity modeling of flapping-wing MAV flight physics. The next objective was to study the fluid physics associated with low Reynolds number flapping wings to facilitate the design of effective high-bandwidth control of wing beat kinematics for MAVs. Another objective was to build a fundamental knowledge base for the physics of flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles MAVs. This Phase 2 work had two major components a Simulation environment based on an advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics CFD solver called Loci-STREAM, and, b Experimental effort to validate the simulations and to guide model development.