Design and implementation of an independent-drive bionic dragonfly robot.

Abstract

Bionic flapping wing robots achieve flight by imitating animal flapping wings, which are safe, flexible, and efficient. Their practicality and human-machine symbiosis in narrow and complex environments are better than those of traditional fixed-wing or multirotor drones, which shows a broader application prospect. By systematic and biomimetic methods, a bionic dragonfly robot with four independent drive flapping wings, called DFly-I, was designed. First of all, the mechanical structure of the robot was introduced, especially the fluttering structure and the wing structure. Then, a new motion controller based on multi-channel field-oriented control (FOC) is proposed for its motion mechanism, which relies on four sets of brushless DC motors (BLDCs) based on FOC control and four sets of servos to achieve independent control of the flapping speed, rhythm, and angle of four flapping wings. In addition, the system model is analyzed, and on this basis, the robot motion and posture control are realized by an proportional-integral-derivative and active disturbance rejection (PID-ADRC) based controller. Lastly, a physical prototype was made, and the system was feasible through flight experiments in indoor venues.