Design and Optimisation of a Vibrating Wing Insect-Size Air Vehicle with Lumped Parameter Models and Compliant Links

This article presents the design of a microfabricated bio-inspired flapping-wing Nnano Aaerial Vvehicle (NAV), driven by an electromagnetic system. Our approach is based on artificial wings composed of rigid bodies connected by compliant links, which optimise aerodynamic forces though replicating the complex wing kinematics of insects. The originality of this article lies in a new design methodology based on a triple equivalence between a 3D model, a multibody model, and a mass/spring model (0D) which reduces the number of parameters in the problem. This approach facilitates NAV optimisation by using only the mass/spring model, thereby simplifying the design process while maintaining high accuracy. Two wing geometries are studied and optimised in this article to produce large-amplitude wing motions (approximately \(40^\circ \)), and enabling flapping and twisting motion in quadrature. The results are validated thanks to experimental measurements for the large amplitude and through finite element simulations for the combined motion, confirming the effectiveness of this strategy for a NAV weighing less than 40 mg with a wingspan of under 3 cm.