Electrostatic flapping wings with pivot-spar brackets for high lift force

We present artificial electrostatic flapping wings using the "pivot-spar" brackets to achieve high lift force for the first time as compared to the state-of-art: (1) 2.5X higher lift force at 82.4μN; (2) 3X lower overall weight at 330mg using wings made of metal beams and 3μm-thick PET membranes; and (3) 7.5X higher total output force/weight efficiency for the whole system. As such, this work advances the field of Flapping-wing Micro Aerial Vehicles (FMAVs) toward autonomous flight vehicles.