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research article

Sharp turning maneuvers with avian-inspired wing and tail morphing

Ajanic, Enrico  
•
Feroskhan, Mir
•
Wüest, Valentin  
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November 24, 2022
Communications Engineering

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 are not suitable for fast flight in confined spaces. To improve the turning performance of winged drones, here we propose to adopt an avian-inspired strategy of wing folding and pitching combined with a folding and deflecting tail. We experiment in wind tunnel and flight tests how such morphing capabilities increase the roll rate and decrease the turn radius - two measures used for assessing turn performance. Our results indicate that asymmetric wing pitching outperforms asymmetric folding when rolling during cruise flight. Furthermore, the ability to symmetrically morph the wing and tail increases the lift force, which notably decreases the turn radius. These findings pave the way for a new generation of drones that use bird-like morphing strategies combined with a conventional propeller-driven thrust to enable aerodynamic efficient and agile flight in open and confined spaces.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1038/s44172-022-00035-2
Author(s)
Ajanic, Enrico  
Feroskhan, Mir
Wüest, Valentin  
Floreano, Dario  
Date Issued

2022-11-24

Published in
Communications Engineering
Start page

10.1038/s44172

End page

022

Subjects

drones

•

robotics

•

bio-inspired systems

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LIS  
Available on Infoscience
November 24, 2022
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/192738
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