Quadrobee
Simulating Flapping Wing Aerial Vehicle Dynamics On A Quadrotor
The RoboBee is a novel insect-scale flapping wing Micro Aerial Vehicle that is envisioned to enable exciting applications. While recent results have demonstrated full con- trol as well as biomimetic behaviors such as perching, more complex challenges such as perception and navigation still exist. Typically, challenges in perception-based control can only be solved by experimentation. However, such fly-size MAVs are not widely available to researchers at large due to its intricate manufacturing process and limited mechanical lifetime. To facilitate the development of perception and control algorithms of insect-scale MAVs, we explore an approach of simulating flapping wing aerial vehicle dynamics on a quad-rotor. This work performs detailed analysis of the transformation of control inputs, and demonstrates feasibility by numerically simulating basic flight patterns of models of a RoboBee as well as that of a scaled quad-rotor.
