Insect-Based Flapping Wings for Micro Hovering

Air Vehicles: Experimental Investigations

Beerinder Singh ∗ Manikandan Ramasamy

Graduate Research Assistant Post-Doctoral Fellow

Inderjit Chopra J. Gordon Leishman

Alfred Gessow Professor and Director Minta Martin Chair and Professor

Alfred Gessow Rotorcraft Center

Department of Aerospace Engineering
University of Maryland at College Park, MD 20742

Abstract

This paper addresses the aerodynamics of insect-based, biomimetic, flapping

wings in hover. An experimental apparatus that incorporates flapping wings
and measures the small amount of thrust generated by these wing motions is
described. This methodology is used to measure the thrust generated by two
wings at different wing pitch settings. Also, the effect of change in pitch phase
during a flapping cycle is examined experimentally. To quantify the large inertial
loads acting on the wings, vacuum chamber tests were conducted. From these
tests, the temporal variation of the aerodynamic loads has been determined.
Preliminary flow visualization images are presented to qualitatively compare the
performance of the two wings, and to explain the higher lift generated by one
wing as compared to the other.

Notation vn velocity normal to wing chord

vx velocity tangential to wing chord
D drag
y coordinate along the wing chord
Fi inertial force
α angle of attack
Fn force normal to wing chord
θ wing pitch angle
Fx force tangential to wing chord
ζ wing flap angle
L lift
m mass
r spanwise coordinate Introduction
T time period of one flap cycle
In 1997, the Defense Advanced Research
t time
Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a pro-
∗
gram to develop and demonstrate a new
e-mail: beers@eng.umd.edu
Presented at the American Helicopter Society Inter-
family of very small or “micro” air vehicles
national Specialists Meeting on Unmanned Rotor- (MAV’s) having a maximum dimension of 15
craft, Arizona, January, 2004 cm and a gross weight of 100 grams. Inter-
est in these small flight vehicles was precipi-
tated by the nearly simultaneous emergence
of their technological feasibility, alongwith
an array of critical new military needs, es-
pecially in urban environments.1 The tech-
nological feasibility was a result of advances
in several micro-technologies, such as Micro-
electromechanical Systems (MEMS), minia-
ture CCD cameras, tiny infrared sensors and
chip sized hazardous substance detectors.
For these miniature sensors, MAVs provide
a highly portable platform, with low de-
tectability and low noise, capable of real-
time data acquisition.
Net Force
Wing Path
Stroke
Plane
Wing
Downstroke Section
Upstroke
Figure 1: Insect wing kinematics
In nature, flight has evolved into two dif-
ferent forms – insect flight and bird flight.
While both these forms are based on flap-
ping wings, there are some key differences
among them. Most birds flap their wings in
a vertical plane with small changes in the
pitch of the wings during a flapping cycle.
As a result, most birds cannot hover be-
cause they need a forward velocity to gener-
ate sufficient lift. However, the insect world
abounds with examples of hovering flight.
These insects flap their wings in a nearly
horizontal plane (Fig. 1), accompanied by
large changes in wing pitch angle to produce
lift even in the absence of any forward veloc-
ity. Among insects we find animals that are
capable of taking off backwards, flying side-
wards, and landing upside down. Moreover,
2
birds like the hummingbird, which are capa-
ble of hover, have wing motions very similar
to hover-capable insects. Thus, insect-based
biomimetic flight may present a viable solu-
tion for hover-capable MAVs that must be
investigated.
The flight of insects has intrigued sci-
entists for some time because, at first
glance, their flight seems impossible ac-
cording to conventional aerodynamic the-
ory. Ellington2 showed that a quasi-steady
analysis of insect flight under-predicts the
lifting capability of insects. A number of
unsteady phenomena have been used to ex-
plain the high lift generated by insects.
Weis-Fogh’s clap-fling hypothesis is one such
lift generating mechanism, but it is limited
to a few species of insects and hence does
not explain the flight of other species. Re-
cent experiments conducted on a dynam-
ically scaled model (Robofly) have shown
that insects take advantage of unsteady
aerodynamic phenomena to generate thrusts
greater than those predicted by quasi-steady
analyses. 3 Figure 1 shows the typical mo-
tion of an insect wing. This motion mainly
consists of four parts: a) downstroke, in
which the wing translates with a fixed col-
lective pitch angle, b) near the end of the
downstroke the wing supinates so that the
blade angle of attack is positive on the up-
stroke, c) upstroke and, d) pronation at the
end of the upstroke so that the angle of at-
tack is positive on the downstroke. Dur-
ing the downstroke and upstroke (i.e. the
translational phases) high lift is produced
because of a leading edge vortex on the
wing.4 Supination and pronation also pro-
duce significant lift from rotational circu-
lation (Kramer effect5 ). The third effect,
wake capture, occurs as the wing passes
through its own wake, which was created
during the previous stroke.
Most of the analytical studies on the aero-
dynamics of flapping wings have examined as well as some preliminary insight into the
either rigid wings or wings with a prescribed flow field using strobed laser sheet flow vi-
motion.6, 7 Some of these studies look at sualization.
ornithoptic or bird-like flapping, i.e. flap-
ping without the pronation and supination
phases of insect-like flapping. Some are re- Experimental Setup
stricted to small disturbances while others
are computationally intensive CFD simu-
lations. DeLaurier8 developed an aerody-
namic model for ornithoptic flapping which
has been applied to the aeroelastic analy-
sis of a large-scale ornithopter.9 Walker10
recently developed a simple analysis that
can predict the translational and rotational
components of the airloads on the Robofly
wings. The development of a comprehensive
theory for unsteady force generation by in-
sect wings is partly hindered by a lack of ex-
perimental data at the chord Reynolds num-
bers of interest (103 − 104 ).
An important feature of insect wings is Figure 2: Flapping wing mechanism (Con-
that they can deform greatly during flight. cept by M.J. Tarascio13 )
Also, unlike birds or bats, insect muscles
stop at the wing base so any active con-
trol of the wing shape is not likely.11, 12 Flapping Wing Mechanism
Passive aeroelastic design is hence very im-
portant for insect wings. The Robofly The flapping wing test apparatus is a
measurements are based on very low fre- passive-pitch, bi-stable mechanism capa-
quencies of motion because the fluid used ble of emulating insect wing kinematics13
had a high viscosity. Thus wing bending (Fig. 2). The desired flapping and pitching
and passive aeroelastic effects are likely to motion is produced by a Hacker B20 31S
be very small in the Robofly experiment. brushless motor, which is controlled by a
Tarascio and Chopra13 presented experi- Phoenix PHX-10 sensorless speed controller
mental results for a flapping wing proto- in combination with a GWS microprocessor
type that operated in air at high flapping precision pulse generator. The motor shaft
frequencies. Recently, the present authors is rigidly attached to a rotating disk, which
measured the thrust generated by insect- in turn is attached to a pin that drives a
like flapping wings mounted on this flap- Scotch yoke. The Scotch yoke houses ball
ping wing prototype.14 In this paper, an ends, which are attached to shafts that are
improvement of the thrust measurement free to flap with the motion of the yoke. As
methodology is described and thrust mea- the shaft is actively flapped, pitch actuators,
surements for a number of wing and stroke which are rigidly attached to the shaft, make
parameters are presented. In addition, a few contact with delrin ball ends at the end of
vacuum chamber test results are presented each half-stroke, causing the shaft to pitch

3
 Figure 3: Pitch assembly

and, hence, generate the wing flip at the end

of the half-stroke.
The rotation of the shaft or “flip” at the
end of each half stroke is generated by the
pitch assembly, which also serves to fix the
pitch angle of the shaft during the transla-
tional phases of the wing motion. The pitch
assembly consists of the main spar, which
is rigidly attached to a cam, which is in
turn held in place by a delrin slider and a Figure 4: Load Cell
compression spring (Fig 3). In combination
with the pitch stop, the entire assembly is
of the flapping shaft, with the wing being
bi-stable, in that it allows the shaft to rest
mounted at the end of the load-cell.
in only two positions. As the pitch actua-
tor makes contact with the Delrin ball stops
at the end of each half-stroke, the cam is
forced to rock over to the other stable posi-
tion, with the compression spring holding it
in place until the next rotation.

Force and Motion Transducers

Measurement of the flapping and pitching
motions, and the small airloads generated
by a wing mounted on the flapping mecha-
nism, poses a significant challenge. To mea-
sure these airloads, a load-cell has been de-
signed and built using Entran ESU-025-500
piezoresistive strain gauges. The load-cell
has a narrow beam cross-section on which
two strain gauges are mounted to mea-
sure the loads in two orthogonal directions
(Fig. 4). Each strain gauge is connected in
a half-bridge configuration with a dummy
gauge, which provides temperature compen-
sation. The load-cell is mounted at the end
Figure 5: Pitch Measurement
The load cell measures forces normal and
tangential to the wing chord. To obtain the
vertical and horizontal components of these
forces, the pitch angle of the shaft must be
measured. This is done by using a Hall effect
sensor in combination with a semi-circular
disk mounted on the shaft (Fig. 5). The disk
has ten small magnets arranged in a semi-
circle, with the Hall effect sensor mounted

4
on the pitch housing. A pitching motion a number of flapping cycles.
of the shaft causes the magnets to move in
relation to the Hall effect sensor, producing Vacuum Chamber
a change in its output.
Figure 6: Vacuum Chamber
Because strain gauges are used on the load
cell, only the moment acting at the base of
the wing is measured. To convert this mo-
ment into an equivalent force, the distance
from the wing base at which this force acts
must be known. Because the forces on a
flapping wing are predominantly inertial in
nature,15,16 the point on the wing at which
these forces act is calculated analytically,
and is used to determine the forces acting
on the wing. These forces are then trans-
formed into vertical and horizontal compo-
nents using the measured pitch angle. The
mean aerodynamic thrust is calculated by
taking the average of the vertical force over
To quantify the inertial forces acting on the
wing, a small vacuum chamber has been de-
signed and built using a 1600 diameter, 1/200
thick acrylic cylinder (Fig. 6). At the two
ends of this cylinder 100 thick acrylic plates
are held by screws. The upper plate is fit-
ted with a valve to connect to a vacuum
pump. In addition, this plate also has a vac-
uum gauge and two electrical feedthroughs
for connecting the motor, pitch sensor and
force sensors. All vacuum chamber tests are
conducted at a gauge pressure of 2700 of Hg,
which corresponds to a 90% vacuum.
Flow Visualization
The flow visualization test stand consists of
a steel frame bolted to the ground, on which
the flapping wing mechanism is mounted ap-
proximately 40 above ground (Fig. 7). Alu-
minum plates extend from ground level to
approximately 30 above the mechanism to
provide an image plane for the single wing.
At the top of the aluminum plates, an alu-
minum honeycomb extends 20 horizontally.
The seed for the flow visualization is pro-
duced by vaporizing a mineral oil into a
dense fog, which passes through a series of
ducts before reaching a diffuser mounted on
top of the honeycomb. The diffuser reduces
the vertical velocity of the fog, while the
honeycomb helps to eliminate any swirl or
turbulence in the flow.
Flow visualization images are acquired by
strobing the flow with a laser sheet gen-
erated by a dual Nd:YAG laser, as shown
in Fig. 8. This laser is triggered once
every flapping cycle by a Hall effect switch
mounted on the flapping wing mechanism.
A charge coupled device (CCD) camera is
used to capture the images.
5
 Analysis
Experiments have shown that the lift and
drag coefficients on flapping wings are
higher because of the leading edge vortex.3
Previous quasi-steady analyses, such as
Ref. 2, did not account for this increased
performance and hence failed to accurately
predict the lift generating capacity of in-
sect wings. However, quasi-steady analyses
can explain the lift produced by an insect
wing if the effects of a leading edge vor-
tex, on the lift and drag coefficients, are ac-
counted for. This has led to a revival of
quasi-steady models in recent years.5 How-
ever, such models cannot account for the
force peaks resulting from wing wake inter-
actions because these effects are unsteady in
nature. A blade element model developed
by Walker10 is used to predict the airloads
Figure 7: Flow Visualization Test Setup
on the flapping wings. In this analysis, the
wing is assumed to be rigid, i.e. the effects
of elastic bending and torsion are ignored.
Z i z1

z
y

Laser Sheet
θ y
1

Wing Flapping
Axis Yi

Camera
ζ
Xi
Laser
x1 x

Figure 8: Flow Visualization Schematic Figure 9: Reference Frames

The reference frames used to model the

motion of the flapping wing are shown in
Fig. 9. The inertial reference frame Xi Yi Zi

6
has its origin at the center of rotation. The dm, located at radius r, and at a distance y
flapping angle ζ denotes the rotation of the in front of the pitching axis, are given by,
flapping reference frame x1 y1 z1 about the  T
Zi axis as shown. The wing reference frame  y cos θ ζ̈ + ζ̇(r ζ̇ − 2y θ̇ sin θ) 
 
xyz is obtained by rotating the flapping ref- Fi = dm 2 2 2
y(θ̇ + ζ̇ cos θ) − r cos θζ̈
erence frame by the wing pitch angle θ, rζ̈ sin θ − y(θ̈ + sin θ cos θζ̇ 2 ) 

 

about the x1 axis.

At a particular instant of time t, the forces
 
 î 
 
parallel (dFx ) and perpendicular (dFn ) to ĵ (4)
the wing chord, at a radial station r, are 
 
k̂ 
given by,
where, î, ĵ and k̂ are the unit vectors cor-
responding to the pitching reference frame
dFn (r, t) = dL(r, t) cos α + dD(r, t) sin α xyz. The inertial forces acting on a wing
(1) of arbitrary shape can be calculated using
dFx (r, t) = dL(r, t) sin α − dD(r, t) cos α the above equations, provided the wing is
(2) assumed to be rigid. This analysis is used
where, dL(r, t) and dD(r, t) are the circula- to predict the point on the wing, where the
tory lift and drag which depend on the angle resultant inertial force acts.
of attack, α, as given by,

α = tan−1
 v (r, t) 
n
(3)
Results and Discussion
vx (r, t)
Thrust Measurement
and where vx (r, t) and vn (r, t) are the veloc-
ities parallel and perpendicular to the wing The thrust generated by two aluminum-
chord, respectively. As shown in Ref. 10, mylar wings has been measured for a num-
these velocities are determined at the 3/4 ber of stroke and wing parameters. The
chord location, which was found to give wing planform is based on a scaled-up fruit
good agreement with experimental results fly wing similar to the Robofly3 wings.
These wings, made from 0.0200 thick alu-
for the Robofly wings (for lift due to transla-
tion and rotation). The forces dFn and dFx minum frames, are shown in Fig. 10. In
were transformed to the flapping reference Ref. 14, it was shown that Wings I and
frame through the pitch angle θ to deter- II produce the same amount of thrust but
mine the vertical and horizontal circulatory Wing II can attain higher frequencies on
forces. Non-circulatory forces generated by the flapping wing mechanism because of its
the acceleration of the wing in a direction lower mass. In this paper, results are pre-
perpendicular to the chord were calculated sented for Wings II and III only. All the
and added to the circulatory forces. results are based on a flapping stroke angle
of 80◦ , i.e. the angle ζ varies from −40◦ to
+40◦ . Each wing was tested at two pitch an-
Inertial Forces
gles of 30o and 45o . A pitch angle of 30◦ im-
The forces acting on a flapping wing are pre- plies that the pitch is 30◦ during the down-
dominantly inertial in nature.15,16 The in- stroke and then changes to −30◦ (150◦ ) dur-
ertial forces acting on an infinitesimal mass ing upstroke. Similarly for the 45◦ case, the

7
 3
Experiment
(Circular
2.5 o load cell)
Stroke : 80
Pitch : +30o/−30o

Thrust (grams)
2

1.5 Analysis (Wings I & II)

Experiment
0.5 (Square load cell)

0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 12: Effect of change in load cell de-

sign on measured thrust

pitch angle is 45◦ during the downstroke and

changes to −45◦ (135◦ ) during the upstroke.
Figure 11 shows the dimensions of the wings
and the root cut-out.
In Ref. 14, the development of a bending
beam load cell with a square cross-section
was described. This load cell had small
cross-couplings between the two orthogonal
axes of measurement. Figure 12 shows the
thrust generated by Wing II, when mea-
Figure 10: Scaled-up fruit fly wings sured with this square cross-section load
cell. Also shown in the figure is the thrust
predicted using the blade element analysis,
as described previously. The thrust mea-
sured using this load cell shows a higher-
5.0 cm order variation as opposed to the quadratic
variation shown by the analysis. To check
whether this discrepancy is caused by the
cross-coupling present in the load cell, a
4.2 cm cylindrical cross section load cell was de-
signed and built. On a square cross-
section load cell, the strain gauges must
be mounted with great precision if spuri-
14.3 cm ous surface strains are to be avoided. If the
Figure 11: Schematic of planform showing gauge is off-center, it can pick up unwanted
root cut-out surface strains that cause the calibration
constants to change as the pitch angle of the
load cell is varied. On a cylindrical cross-

8
section, these spurious strains are mini- tal change of 90◦ . However, when the pitch
mized. Figure 12 shows the thrust measured angle is 30◦ , the total change in pitch is 120◦
using this redesigned load cell. Although as the wing flips from 30◦ to 150◦ . The re-
there still remains a discrepancy between duced flip angle at 45◦ pitch, reduces the
the analysis and experiment, the cylindri- rotational circulation for Wing III. Because
cal load cell shows a quadratic increase in Wing III generates a significant amount of
thrust as the frequency is increased. All re- lift from rotational circulation, the net in-
maining thrust measurements in this paper crease in thrust is very small at 45◦ pitch
have been made using the cylindrical load angle. Also, at low frequencies, the mea-
cell. Although a cylindrical cross-section sured increase in thrust is smaller. This may
provides good results, it suffers from the be caused by a weaker leading edge vortex
drawback that the strain gauges do not have at slower speeds.
a flat surface to bond with. This leads to a
short useful life of these load cells before the 6
strain gauges need to be replaced, thus in-
5 Stroke : 80o
creasing the overall testing time. Pitch : +30o/−30o
Experiment (Wing III)
Figure 13 shows a comparison of the
Thrust (grams)
4
experimental measurements and analytical
3
thrust predictions for the two wings at a
pitch angle of 30◦ . Wing III pitches about 2
the 20% chord location, compared to Wing Analysis (Wing III)
1
II, which pitches about the 50% chord loca- Experiment (Wing II)

tion. This change in pitching axis increases 0

Analysis (Wing II)
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
the thrust produced by Wing III because Frequency (Hz)
it produces more lift from rotational circu-
lation during the pronation and supination Figure 13: Comparison of thrust generated
phases, as indicated by the analysis. by Wings II and III
Figure 14 shows the thrust generated by
Wing II at a pitch angle of 45◦ along with
the thrust generated at a pitch angle of 30◦ . 6

At a higher pitch angle the thrust is ex- Wing II

5 Stroke : 80o
pected to increase. However, the experi- Pitch : +30o/−30o
and +45o/−45o
Thrust (grams)

mental results show that the thrust does not 4

change when the pitch angle is increased for o

Experiment (45 )
3
Wing II. Figure 15 shows similar results for
Wing III. In this case, however, the experi- 2
mentally measured thrust does show an in- Analysis (45o)
1
crease when the pitch angle is increased to o
45◦ . On the other hand, the predictions do Analysis (30o) Experiment (30 )
0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
not show any significant change with pitch Frequency (Hz)
angle. This is because, when the pitch angle
for Wing III is increased, the total change Figure 14: Effect of wing pitch angle on
in pitch is reduced. At 45◦ pitch angle, the thrust (Wing II)
wing flips from 45◦ to 135◦ , producing a to-

9
 6 6
o
Experiment (45 )
5 5
Wing III Wing II
o
Stroke : 80o Stroke : 80

Thrust (grams)
Thrust (grams)

4 4 Pitch : +45 /−45o

o
Pitch : +30o/−30o
o o
and +45 /−45
o
3 Analysis (45 ) 3
o
Experiment (30 ) Pitch: Baseline
2 2
o
Analysis (30 )
1 1 Pitch: Early

0 0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

Figure 15: Effect of wing pitch angle on Figure 17: Effect of early rotation on thrust
thrust (Wing III) (Wing II)

6 6
Pitch: Baseline
5 5
Wing III Wing II
Stroke : 80o 4 Stroke : 80o
Thrust (grams)
Thrust (grams)

4 Pitch : +45o/−45o Pitch : +30o/−30o

3
Pitch: Early Air
3
2
2
1
Vacuum
1 0

0 −1
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Frequency (Hz) Frequency (Hz)

Figure 16: Effect of early rotation on thrust Figure 18: Thrust in air and vacuum for
(Wing III) Wing II

Figure 16 shows the effect of a slight
change in pitch phase on the thrust gener-
ated by Wing III at a pitch angle of 45◦ .
To change the pitch phase, the ball ends
shown in Fig. 2 are moved slightly toward
each other, thus causing the pitch actuator
to hit them early, producing an early pitch,
(i.e. the wing flips over earlier in the flap-
ping cycle as compared to the baseline case).
For this case, the wing starts pitching 0.04T
earlier than the pitch starting point for the
baseline case, where T is the time period of
one flapping cycle. Insects use such changes
in pitch phase to change the lift generated
by their wings. Figure 17 shows that the
thrust reduces when Wing III pitches early.
An interesting observation is the nearly lin-
ear variation of thrust with frequency for
the case of early pitching. The reduction in
lift is unexpected since it has been reported
elsewhere3 that early pitching may produce
a positive wake capture, i.e., when the wing
flips early in the flapping cycle, its interac-
tion with the wake created during the pre-
vious cycle increases the total thrust. Fig-
ure 17 shows the effect of early pitching on

10
the thrust generated by Wing II. Although a
limited amount of data is available for this
case, the thrust is nearly unchanged when
compared to the baseline case.
Vacuum Chamber Tests
Inertial forces are a large part of the to-
tal forces measured using the load cell. To
eliminate these inertial loads from the total
measured loads, the flapping wings must be
tested in a vacuum. Tests conducted in a
90% vacuum show that, as expected, Wing
II generates a very small thrust at a pitch
angle of 30◦ , as shown in Fig. 18. However,
the measurement error in the vacuum cham-
ber data is larger as compared to the mea-
surement error in air.
Vacuum chamber tests were used to sub-
tract the inertial forces from the total forces
measured in air. When the wing was tested
in vacuum, the frequency attained by the
mechanism was not the same as the fre-
quency in air at the same motor supply volt-
age. However, to subtract the inertial forces
from the total loads, the test frequencies in
air and vacuum must match closely. This
was done by adjusting the motor supply
voltage during the vacuum chamber tests
to change the frequency. Figure 19 shows
the thrust generated in one flapping cycle by
Wing II, in air and in vacuum at a frequency
close to 10.7 Hz. The frequency for the vac-
uum test was 10.71 Hz, while the frequency
in air was 10.65 Hz. Because these frequen-
cies are slightly different, the results were
plotted against non-dimensional time in the
flapping cycle. Figure 19 also shows the air-
loads obtained after subtracting the inertial
forces from the total forces, and the pitch
angle θ measured both in air and in vacuum.
It is evident from this figure that the pitch
angle varies slightly in vacuum because of a
change in the dynamics of the drive mech-
11
anism. Also, the temporal variation of air-
loads contains frequencies higher than the
flapping frequency, which may be caused by
the elastic bending and twisting of the wing.
It can be seen from Fig. 19 that during the
translational phases (i.e., the portion of time
when the pitch angle is nearly constant),
there are significant durations of negative
thrust. For example, for the time period
0.2T-0.3T, there is a nearly constant nega-
tive thrust on the wing, although the wing
does produce significant positive thrust from
time 0.1T to 0.2T.
Flow Visualization
Preliminary flow visualization results are
presented here to show the differences be-
tween Wing II and Wing III at 45◦ pitch
angle and the baseline case of pitch phase.
One of the reasons for the high lift generat-
ing capability of insects, even at large pitch
angles, is the presence of an attached leading
edge vortex on top of the wing. Figures 20
and 21 show such a leading edge vortex on
Wings II and III, respectively. In these pic-
tures, the wing is close to mid-stroke, the
laser sheet is at mid-span of the wing, and
the camera is placed perpendicular to the
laser sheet, as shown in Fig. 8.
Figures 22 and 23 show flow visualiza-
tion images of Wings II and III, respec-
tively, at a point in the flapping cycle when
the wing was midway through the prona-
tion phase. The pitch angle at this point
is nearly 90◦ , as can be seen from the im-
ages. Figures 24 and 25 show images taken
when the wings were slightly beyond the
mid-pronation point. As mentioned ear-
lier, Wing III generates substantially greater
lift compared to Wing II because of rota-
tional circulation. The flow visualization
images show the presence of a strong circu-
lation around Wing III during the pronation
 Airload (grams) Thrust (grams)
200
Mean (Air)
2.4503
0
Mean (Vacuum)
0.42508
−200
0
200
Mean airload
2.0253
0

−200

200
θ (degrees)

Vacuum

100 Air

0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Non−dimensional Time (t/T)

Figure 19: Airloads obtained by subtracting inertial forces

Figure 20: Leading edge vortex (Wing II) Figure 21: Leading edge vortex (Wing III)

12

Figure 22: Mid-pronation (Wing II)
Figure 23: Mid-pronation (Wing III)
Figure 24: Post mid-pronation (Wing II)
13
Figure 25: Post mid-pronation (Wing III)
phase. For Wing II, two small vortices were
visible on the top surface of the wing. How-
ever, Wing III shows a single strong vortex
at the same point in the flapping cycle.
Summary and Conclusions
The thrust generated by two insect-like
wings, mounted on a flapping-pitching
mechanism, has been measured for a num-
ber of wing and stroke parameters. An
improved force measurement methodology
is described, which resolves some mea-
surement issues that were pointed out
previously.14 The two wings tested had the
same planform shape. One wing pitched
about the 50% chord location (Wing II),
while the other pitched about the 20% chord
location (Wing III). The latter produces
more lift because of higher rotational circu-
lation during the pronation and supination
phases. However, when the pitch angle of
the wings is increased from 30◦ to 45◦ , the
thrust produced by Wing III increased but
the thrust for Wing II remained the same. A
slight change in pitch phase, so that prona-
tion and supination occur early in the flap-
ping cycle, reduced the thrust produced by
Wing III. Again, the thrust produced by
Wing II remained unchanged from the base-
line case.
The inertial forces produced by Wing II
have been measured by testing it at a vac-
uum pressure of 2700 of Hg (90% vacuum).
These forces were then subtracted from the
total measured loads to obtain the aero-
dynamic forces on the wings. The resul-
tant aerodynamic force showed high fre-
quency oscillations which were suspected to
be caused by the elastic bending and twist-
ing of the wing. The measured pitching mo-
tion of the wing showed a small change in
vacuum as compared to the pitching motion
measured in air at the same frequency. This
may cause some error in the aerodynamic
force calculations.
Preliminary flow visualization tests were
conducted on the two wings at a wing pitch
angle of 45◦ . An attached leading edge vor-
tex, which enables the wing to generate lift
at such a high pitch setting, was observed
on both wings. Qualitatively, the leading
edge vortex seems to be larger for Wing III.
Also, the circulation around the wing dur-
ing pronation is greater for Wing III, which
generates greater lift from rotational circu-
lation.
Acknowledgements
Support from the Multidisciplinary Univer-
sity Research Initiative (MURI) is gratefully
acknowledged. The authors also wish to
acknowledge the contribution of Mr. M.J.
Tarascio (Sikorsky), who built the flapping
wing mechanism.
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