Exploring a bumblebee-inspired power-optimal flapping-wing design for hovering on Mars based on a surrogate model

Abstract

While rovers are of importance for Mars exploration in terms of various surveillance, surface rovers may encounter great challenges due to rough terrain and complex turbulent environment on Mars partly because aerial vehicles have difficulties to stay airborne due to the extremely low atmospheric density. Flights of surface rovers on Mars share the aerodynamic similarity with insect flights on earth in terms of low Reynolds number flow regime. Motivated by that insects can achieve remarkable flapping-wing aerodynamic performance in force production, flight stability and maneuverability under highly unsteady environments, we here proposed a bumblebee-inspired flapping-wing design for Mars surface rovers. We developed a power-efficient aerodynamic model by combining a surrogate model and a bioinspired dynamic flight simulator for hovering flight in a parametric space comprising wing shape and wing kinematics to explore feasible design points and some optimal solution with the power output minimized. Our results indicate that an enlarged wing model inspired by bumblebees is capable of sustaining hovering flight on Mars with a set of aspect ratios and wing kinematics and an optimal design point is found to correspond with a power output of 0.0509W, which may provide a novel and feasible biomimetic design for flapping-wing aerial vehicles on Mars.