Publications related to Wing | EPFL Graph Search

Co-Design Optimisation of Morphing Topology and Control of Winged Drones

Dario Floreano, Valentin Wüest, Fabio Bergonti

The design and control of winged aircraft and drones is an iterative process aimed at identifying a compromise of mission-specific costs and constraints. When agility is required, shape-shifting (morphing) drones represent an efficient solution. However, m ...

IEEE2024

The effects of kinematics, flexibility, and planform on the vortex formation and aerodynamic performance of flapping wing flight

Alexander Gehrke

In this thesis, the aerodynamic challenges in flapping wing flight are addressed. In particular, the effects of different wing kinematics, flexibilities, and planforms on the the leading edge vortex development and aerodynamic performance are investigated. ...

EPFL2023

Wing and tail morphing in birds and drones

Enrico Ajanic

To aid humans in civilian tasks, future drones will have to operate in large cities that abound with difficult flight conditions such as confined spaces, obstacles, and turbulent air. Such drones must cruise efficiently to cover vast distances fast and als ...

EPFL2023

Earwig-inspired foldable origami wing for micro air vehicle gliding

Jamie Paik, Risa Ishiguro

Foldable wings serve as an effective solution for reducing the size of micro air vehicles (MAVs) during non-flight phases, without compromising the gliding capacity provided by the wing area. Among insects, earwigs exhibit the highest folding ratio in thei ...

Frontiers Media Sa2023

Aeroelastic characterisation of a bio-inspired flapping membrane wing

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke, Esra Uksul, Jules Ange Philippe Richeux

Natural fliers like bats exploit the complex fluid-structure interaction between their flexible membrane wings and the air with great ease. Yet, replicating and scaling the balance between the structural and fluid-dynamical parameters of unsteady membrane ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Sharp turning maneuvers with avian-inspired wing and tail morphing

Dario Floreano, Valentin Wüest, Enrico Ajanic, Mir Alikhan Bin Mohammad Feroskhan

Flight in dense environments, such as forests and cities requires drones to perform sharp turns. Although fixed-wing drones are aerodynamically and energetically more efficient than multicopters, they require a comparatively larger area to turn and thus ar ...

2022

To tread or not to tread: comparison between water treading and conventional flapping wing kinematics

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke, Swathi Badala Krishna

Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back-and-forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the leading edge vo ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

How ornithopters can perch autonomously on a branch

Raphael Zufferey

Flapping wings produce lift and thrust in bio-inspired aerial robots, leading to quiet, safe and efficient flight. However, to extend their application scope, these robots must perch and land, a feat widely demonstrated by birds. Despite recent progress, f ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Phenomenology and scaling of optimal flapping wing kinematics

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Alexander Gehrke

Biological flapping wing fliers operate efficiently and robustly in a wide range of flight conditions and are a great source of inspiration to engineers. The unsteady aerodynamics of flapping wing flight are dominated by large-scale vortical structures tha ...

IOP PUBLISHING LTD2021

Comparative dynamic flight stability of insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles in hover: Longitudinal and lateral motions

Hoang Vu Phan, Khanh Nguyen

In this paper, we compare the characteristics of hovering stability for two insect-inspired flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FW-MAVs) with different strategies to generate control moments for the longitudinal and lateral attitude controls. The two robots ...

2021

Performance enhancement of downwind sails due to leading edge flapping: A wind tunnel investigation

Julien Dominique Claude Deparday

This work presents a wind tunnel experimental study on the effect of the leading edge flapping on the aerodynamic performance of a spinnaker. Four J80-class spinnaker models, combining two different assembling structures (panel layout) and two different sa ...

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD2018

Flow control of weakly non-parallel flows: application to trailing vortices

François Gallaire, Giacomo Valerio Iungo, Francesco Viola, Erica Pezzica

A general formulation is proposed to control the integral amplification factor of harmonic disturbances in weakly non-parallel amplifier flows. The sensitivity of the local spatial stability spectrum to a base-flow modification is first determined, general ...

Cambridge University Press2017

Locomotion Dynamics for Bio-inspired Robots with Soft Appendages: Application to Flapping Flight and Passive Swimming

Yannick Morel, Mathieu Porez

In animal locomotion, either in fish or flying insects, the use of flexible terminal organs or appendages greatly improves the performance of locomotion (thrust and lift). In this article, we propose a general unified framework for modeling and simulating ...

Springer2017

Unsteady fluid dynamics around a hovering flat plate wing

Swathi Badala Krishna

Insect flight is characterised by complex time-dependent flows in response to the unsteady wing movements. Biological fliers exploit the unsteady flow fields to modulate aerodynamic forces, thereby displaying unmatched flight performance, especially in hov ...

EPFL2017

Multi Level Monte Carlo Methods for Uncertainty Quantification and Robust Design Optimization in Aerodynamics

Michele Pisaroni

The vast majority of problems that arise in aircraft production and operation require decisions to be made in the presence of uncertainty. An effective and accurate quantification and control of the level of uncertainty introduced in the design phase and d ...

EPFL2017

A Drone with Insect-Inspired Folding Wings

Dario Floreano, Stefano Mintchev, Kevin Nicholas Cradock Owen

Flying robots are increasingly adopted in search and rescue missions because of their capability to quickly collect and stream information from remote and dangerous areas. To further enhance their use, we are investigating the development of a new class of ...

Ieee2016

Mode selection in trailing vortices: harmonic response of the non-parallel Batchelor vortex

François Gallaire, Francesco Viola, Cristobal Manuel Arratia Martinez

In the present study, the response of model trailing vortices subjected to a harmonic forcing is studied. To this purpose, a globally stable non-parallel Batchelor vortex is considered as the baseflow. Direct numerical simulations (DNS) show that a large v ...

Cambridge University Press2016

Photogrammetric Mission Planner for RPAS

Jan Skaloud, Martin Rehak, Florian Gandor

This paper presents a development of an open-source flight planning tool for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) that is dedicated to high-precision photogrammetric mapping. This tool contains planning functions that are usually available in professio ...

2015

Evolution of the Aerodynamic Stability of an Oscillating Annular Compressor Cascade with Inlet Reverse Flow Condition Variations

Peter Ott, Virginie Anne Chenaux

While the advancement of computing hardware now enables accurate predictions of flutter and forced response at normal flow conditions during the compressor design phase, aeroelastic computations at off-design or reverse flow conditions remain a challenging ...

Lappeenranta University of Technology2013

How oblique trailing edge of a hydrofoil reduces the vortex-induced vibration

François Avellan, Mohamed Farhat, Philippe Ausoni, Amirreza Zobeiri

The effect of hydrofoil trailing edge shape on the wake dynamic and flow induced vibration is investigated at high Reynolds number, Re = 0.5 x 10(6)-2.9 x 10(6). Two NACA 0009 hydrofoils with blunt and oblique trailing edges are tested. The velocity field ...

Elsevier2012