Identification of Flight Aerodynamics for Flapping-Wing Microrobots

Experimentally collected flight dynamics data of flapping-wing microrobots reveals several characteristics that cannot be captured by the information gathered from static experiments. For an insect-sized flapping-wing micro air vehicle with air dampers, we show that a physics-based quasi-steady aerodynamic model is able to predict the flight dynamics with reasonable accuracy. The proposed model is optimized for the vehicle of interest through the use of learning algorithms. The identified model demonstrates the potential for future use in control applications.