Bio-inspired Insect Flight

Graphic of insect with green wings

Physical principles

  • Insects utilize unsteady aerodynamics to generate lift
  • The three major unsteady lift enhancement sources:

    • Delayed stall – Leading Edge Vortex (LEV)

    • Rapid pitch up rotation

    • Wake capture  

Infographic showing lift force vs stroke time
Inforgraphic chart showing size of aerodynamic objects, from insects to airplanes

Some key results

Hover vs. forward flight

  • Forward speed increases, flapping plane tilts forward
  • As forward speed increases, vertical force production shifts to the downstroke of the flap cycle
  • At U=0.5 m/s has minimum aerodynamic power
  • Reynolds number𝑂(100)O(100)
Three infographic charts showing flapping plane tilt and vertical force
GIF of orange and green waves, showing an insect in flight
model of green insect, hover
model of green insect, forward flight

Read more about the methodology and results in the following publications and proceedings:

  1. Badrya, C., Sridharan, A., Baeder, J. D., and Kroninger, C. M., Multi-Fidelity Coupled Trim Analysis of a Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicle Flight, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 54, No. 5, 2017, pp. 1614-1630.DOI: 10.2514/1.C034236
  2. Badrya, C., Harrington, A., Govindarajan, B, Baeder, J. D., and Kroningers, M. C., Computational and Experimental Investigation of a Flapping Wing MAV in Hover, Journal of Aircraft, Vol. 56, No. 4,2019. DOI: 10.2514/1.C035239
  3. Badrya, C., Govindarajan, B., and Baeder, J., Analysis of Flapping Wings from a Rotorcraft Perspective, The 7th UAV Specialists Meeting of the American Helicopter Society January 2017, Mesa, AZ
  4. Badrya, C., Sridharan, A., and Baeder, J. D., CFD-coupled Trim Analysis of a Millimeter-Scale Flapping Wing MAV in Steady Turning Flight, AIAA Scitech 2019 Forum, 13-17 June 2016, Washington, DC. DOI:  10.2514/6.2016-3557
  5. Badrya, C. and Baeder, J. D., Insect Kinematics in Trimmed Flight at Low Reynolds Numbers Using CFD, 53rd AIAA Aerospace Science Meeting, 5-9 January 2015, Kissimmee, FL. DOI: 10.2514/6.2015-0045