Design of Bionic Deployable Wings

Abstract

Flapping wing micro air vehicles (MAVs) take inspiration from natural insects and small birds. Reducing its size is a trend in development. Bioinspired from hindwings of the Asian ladybeetle, a design scheme of bionic deployable wings is put forward in this paper. The deployable movement is achieved by the mechanical structure of two four-bar-linkages, which learn from the behaviors of the folded motion of the beetle’s hindwings. The links are hollow structures bioinspired by hollow tubular structural of vein of the beetle hindwings, which can reduce the mass and improve the maneuverability in flight. Under uniform load and bending moment, the total deformation, equivalent stress and strain of deployable wings are investigated by the finite element analysis (FEA). The simulation shows that their mechanical properties can have beneficial effect on the flight.