Publications associées à Sharp turning maneuvers with avian-inspired wing and tail morphing

Method for wind harvesting and wind rejection in flying drones

Dario Floreano, Victor Casas Rochel, Nathan Samuel Müller, Charalampos Vourtsis, William John Stewart

The present invention concerns a method of manoeuvring a vertical take-off and landing, unmanned aerial drone (100) comprising at least an aerodynamic surface (101), wherein, during a flight of the drone, the aerodynamic surface generates lift and/or drag ...

2024

Lumped Drag Model Identification and Real-Time External Force Detection for Rotary-Wing Micro Aerial Vehicles

Alcherio Martinoli, Lucas Cédric Wälti

This work focuses on understanding and identifying the drag forces applied to a rotary-wing Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV). We propose a lumped drag model that concisely describes the aerodynamical forces the MAV is subject to, with a minimal set of parameters ...

IEEE2024

Accurate and agile flight with winged drones

Valentin Wüest

Drones hold promise to assist in civilian tasks. To realize this application, future drones must operate within large cities, covering large distances while navigating within cluttered urban landscapes. The increased efficiency of winged drones over rotary ...

EPFL2024

Data from: Optimal blade pitch control for enhanced vertical-axis wind turbine performance

Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Ann J Mulleners

This directory contains open-source data obtained using a single-bladed H-type vertical-axis wind turbine prototype with individual blade pitching. This data results from the optimisation of the blade's pitching kinematics using a genetic algorithm at two ...

Zenodo2024

Aerodynamic modeling of a delta-wing UAV for model-based navigation

Jan Skaloud, Pasquale Longobardi

This study aims to identify an optimal, as well as practical, parametric structure for a delta-wing UAV aerodynamic model for the purpose of model-based navigation. We present a comprehensive procedure for characterizing the aerodynamics of this platform, ...

2024

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

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

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

Wind Defiant Morphing Drones

Dario Floreano, Victor Casas Rochel, Nathan Samuel Müller, Charalampos Vourtsis, William John Stewart

Intense winds are a challenge for vertical take-off and landing drones with wings. In particular, in the hovering regime, wings are sensitive to wind currents that can be detrimental to their operational and energetic performances. Tail-sitters are particu ...

2023

Identifying aerodynamics of small fixed-wing drones using inertial measurements for model-based navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

The success of drone missions is incumbent on an accurate determination of the drone pose and velocity, which are collectively estimated by fusing iner- tial measurement unit and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) mea- surements. However, during a G ...

2023

Dynamic stall characterisation and control for vertical-axis wind turbines

Sébastien Le Fouest

According to the International Energy Agency, the global net-zero emissions objective requires the installed wind power capacity to increase 11-fold between 2020 and 2050. The scientific community has recently voiced concerns about the logistic feasibility ...

EPFL2023

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

Karen Ann J Mulleners, Swathi Badala Krishna, Alexander Gehrke

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

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

Real-Time Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Fast Mechatronic Systems

Petr Listov

This thesis presents an efficient and extensible numerical software framework for real-time model-based control. We are motivated by complex and challenging mechatronic applications spanning from flight control of fixed-wing aircraft and thrust vector cont ...

EPFL2022

A Lightweight Device for Energy Harvesting from Power Lines with a Fixed-Wing UAV

Dario Floreano, William John Stewart

Modern UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) suffer from restrictions in flight range and time due to battery capacity limitations. One way to overcome these limitations is to harvest energy from overhead power lines. A growing body of scientific literature has ...

IEEE2022

Experimental investigation of surface roughness effect on a free-flight sphere in a Ludwieg tube

Seong-Hyeon Park

Understanding the aerodynamic coefficients of meteoroid fragments, deorbiting space debris, or launch vehicle stages through atmospheric reentry is essential for ground risk assessments. In high enthalpy flow, surface roughness is a crucial factor affectin ...

KOREAN SOC MECHANICAL ENGINEERS2022

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

The dynamics and timescales of static stall

Sébastien Le Fouest, Karen Ann J Mulleners, Julien Dominique Claude Deparday

Airfoil stall plays a central role in the design of safe and efficient lifting surfaces. We typically distinguish between static and dynamic stall based on the unsteady rate of change of an airfoil’s angle of attack. Despite the somewhat misleading denotat ...

2021

Calibration of Fixed-Wing UAV Aerodynamic Coefficients with Photogrammetry for VDM-based Navigation

Jan Skaloud, Gabriel François Laupré

Autonomous navigation is a crucial aspect for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle operation when encountering disturbance or denial of GNSS signal reception. Vehicle dynamic model-based navigation improves the performance of methods based exclusively on int ...

2021