ABSTRACT
Flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) take precedence over their fixed wing counterparts by virtue of their ability to hover, take off from a constraint surface, maneuver in tight spaces and their perch and stare capability. This paper aims at establishing a scalable relationship between flapping frequency and the geometric parameters that include wingspan (b) and body mass (m) using real data of birds and apply that to determine the Strouhal No.’s relationship with efficiency for flapping wing MAVs. Surrogate models in the form of power laws are developed for systems to handle growing amount of data and generate governing laws for complex phenomena. Geometric data of 140 birds of various species is utilized to form scalable equations. Subsequently, regression analysis is applied to develop the power law model of flapping wing frequency from wingspan and body mass respectively, and subsequently,Strouhal No. is calculated. The derived equations are used to graphically represent the relationship between frequency and geometric parameters for birds and MAVs data and Strouhal No. versus propulsive efficiency for MAVs data. The results indicate a strong correlation of wingspan with flapping frequency. The findings of this study are compared to existing models suggested by previous researchers and futuristic design trends are assessed.
