Flapping-winged aircraft with real-time flow field detection and adjustment
Flapping-winged aircraft with real-time flow field detection and adjustment lead image
Animals that navigate through air or water often have adaptations that enable them to detect flow fields. The animals then alter their motion to accommodate the features of the fluid for efficient transportation. However, mimicking the evolutionary marvels found in seal whiskers or albatross nostrils is difficult in aircraft.
Ji et al. demonstrated how artificial intelligence can determine flow fields from environmental information for aircraft with tandem flapping wings. Flapping wing technologies could resemble a dragonfly-like aircraft or a school of fish, where the wake structure and flow field are increasingly complex.
“Flapping wings are beneficial because they can create higher lift than non-flapping wings by moving through the air in an up-and-down or back-and-forth motion,” said author Fangfang Xie. “During the downstroke, the wing pushes air downwards, creating an upward force (lift); and during the upstroke, the wing minimizes drag and repositions for the next downstroke.”
In a numerical model, the authors simulated how strategically aligned sensors on a wing surface could extract flow field information and relay it to a neural network. Their highly trained neural network then identifies flow wake information and adjusts the flapping pattern accordingly.
As the number of wings increases, so too does the complexity of the system.
“The aerodynamic performance of tandem flapping wings is closely related to the interaction between fore and hind wings, which is strongly affected by the distance and phase,” said Xie.
This work lays the foundation for autonomous flapping wing aircraft that can adjust their motion in real time to avoid obstacles and maximize efficiency.
Source: “Intelligent perception of tandem flapping wings’ flow field environment with sparse detectors,” by Tingwei Ji, Fan Jin, Hongyu Zheng, Xinshuai Zhang, Fangfang Xie, and Yao Zheng, Physics of Fluids (2023). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0169757 .
