Dynamics, stability, and control analyses of flapping wing micro-air vehicles

The paper presents an overview of the various analyses of flight dynamics, stability, and control of flapping wing micro-air vehicles available in the literature. The potential benefits of flapping wing micro-air vehicles for civil, military, and search and rescue operations are numerous. The majority of the flight dynamics research involves the standard aircraft (6DOF) equations of motion, although a growth is evident in examining the multibody flight dynamics models of flapping wing micro-air vehicles. The stability of flapping wing micro-air vehicles is largely studied in the vicinity of hover and forward flight. The majority of stability studies focus on linear, time-invariant stability in the vicinity of reference flight conditions, such as hover or forward flight. The consistent result is that flapping wing micro-air vehicles are unstable in an open loop setting. The unstable result is based on linear and nonlinear stability analyses. Control has been demonstrated for hovering and forward flight through various methods, both linear and nonlinear in nature. The entirety of reported research into the stability and control of flapping wing micro-air vehicles has neglected the mass effects of the wings on the position and orientation of the central body. Successful control of a flapping wing micro-air vehicle, with the wings' mass effects included, is still an open research area.