• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.826-831
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• 2004

Recently, studies have been carried out to develop unmanned Micro Air Vehicles(MAVs) that can search and monitor inside buildings during urban warfare or rescue operations in hazardous environments. However, existing fixed-wing and rotary-wing MAVs cannot travel at extremely low or high speeds, hover in place, or change directions instantly. This has lead researches to search for other flight methods that could overcome those drawbacks. Insect flight principles and its applications to MAVs are being studied as an alternative flight method. To take flight, insects flap and rotate their wings. These wing motions allow for high maneuverability flight such as hovering, vertical take off and landing, and quick acceleration and deceleration. This paper proposes a method for designing a mechanism that reproduces hovering insect flight, the basis for all other forms of insect flight. The design of a mechanism that can reproduce the motion that causes maximum lift is proposed, the required specifications are calculated, and a method for reproducing hovering insect flight with a single motor is presented. Also, feasibility of the design was confirmed by simulation.

• The Journal of Korea Robotics Society
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.256-261
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• 2016

An insect-like flapping-wing flying-robot should be able to produce flight forces and control moments at the same time only by flapping wings, because there is no control surface at tail just like an insect. In this paper, design principles for the flapping mechanism and control moment generator are briefly explained, characteristics measured force and moment generations of the robot are presented, and finally controlled flight of the flying robot is demonstrated. The present insect-like robot comprises a lightweight flapping mechanism that can produce a flapping angle larger than $180^{\circ}$ and a control moment generator that produces pitch, roll, and yaw moments by adjusting location of the trailing edges at the wing roots. The measured force and moment data show that the control input angles less than $9^{\circ}$ would not significantly reduce the vertical force generation. It is also observed that the pitch, roll, and yaw control moments are produced only by the corresponding control input. The simple PID control theory is used for the controlled flight of the flying robot, controlling pitch, roll, and yaw motions. The flying robot successfully demonstrated controlled flight for about 40 seconds.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.267-281
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• 2012

This paper reviews the flight mechanics and control of birds and bird-size aircraft. It is intended to fill a niche in the current survey literature which focuses primarily on the aerodynamics, flight dynamics and control of insect scale flight. We review the flight mechanics from first principles and summarize some recent results on the stability and control of birds and bird-scale aircraft. Birds spend a considerable portion of their flight in the gliding (i.e., non-flapping) phase. Therefore, we also review the stability and control of gliding flight, and particularly those aspects which are derived from the unique control features of birds.