High voltage power electronic drive circuit for flapping wing MAV

Flapping wing Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are a class of bio-inspired autonomous flying robots that have stringent weight and size restrictions, making them attractive for many military as well as civilian applications. In this work, a novel material is proposed for both the structure and the flapping actuator of the MAV. The said material is a kind of piezoelectric fiber composite, called Macro Fiber Composite (MFC). MFC is made by combining piezoelectric fibers in epoxy-based polymer materials and electroded in an inter-digitated manner. The focus of this paper is to address the challenge of designing suitable power electronics for this piezocomposite actuator. The requirements of a light weight, high voltage (-500V to 1500V) drive circuit drawing power from low voltage sources, such as on-board batteries, are addressed. The paper presents the detailed design and simulation of such a drive circuit for MAV applications. The designed circuit first generates a DC voltage of 1500V from 5V DC by using a voltage multiplier and a fly back converter. This high voltage DC signal is then converted to a high voltage AC signal (in the required range of -500V to 1500V AC) by using a H-bridge inverter circuit. PWM signals are used for proper amplitude control of the output signal. The designed circuit is simulated in MATLAB Simulink and the desired results are obtained. The entire design is done to meet the stringent weight requirement of MAV and the circuit can effectively drive the piezoelectric composite actuator.