A motor-driven flapping-wing system mimicking beetle flight

In this work, we present an insect-inspired design of a motor-driven flapping wing system that mimics beetle in terms of beetle's dimension, flapping frequency and wing kinematics. In the design, we used a combination of a Scotch yoke mechanism and a linkage system to transform the rotary motion of a motor into a large flapping motion. A passive wing rotation mechanism was implemented into the flapper by means of flexible members. The flapper was powered by an onboard lithium battery (3.7 V, 180 mAh) for flapping test; it can produce a flapping angle of 148
^o
, a wing rotation angle of 105
^o
at a flapping frequency of 17 Hz, and a maximum average forward velocity of 360 mm/s in a constrained condition. The flapping test and force measurement confirm that the wing rotation significantly contributes to the force generation, consequently, to the forward velocity, and the flapper can generate a positive average vertical force of about 2 grams during flapping motion.