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Updated: Sep 24, 2025

Building an Enhanced Flight Mill for the Study of Tethered Insect Flight
Published on: March 10, 2021
Elastic storage enables robustness of flapping wing dynamics
Xuefei Cai1,2, Yujing Xue1,2, Dmitry Kolomenskiy3
1Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Chiba University International Cooperative Research Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
Flying insects could perform robust flapping-wing dynamics under various environments while minimizing the high energetic cost by using elastic flight muscles and motors. Here we propose a fluid-structure interaction model that couples unsteady flapping aerodynamics and three-torsional-spring-based elastic wing-hinge dynamics to determine passive and active mechanisms (PAM) in bumblebee hovering. The results show that a strategy of active-controlled stroke, passive-controlled wing pitch and deviation enables an optimal elastic storage. The flapping-wing dynamics is robust, which is characterized by dynamics-based passive elevation-rotation and aerodynamics-based passive feathering-rotation, capable of producing aerodynamic force while achieving high power efficiency over a broad range of wing-hinge stiffness. A force-impulse model further confirms the capability of external perturbation robustness under the PAM-based strategy.
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