Nowadays, there is a growing need for flying drones with diverse capabilities for both civilian
and military applications. There is also a significant interest in the development of novel …

Micro air vehicles (MAVs) have the potential to revolutionize our sensing and information
gathering capabilities in areas such as environmental monitoring and homeland security …

This is an ideal book for graduate students and researchers interested in the aerodynamics,
structural dynamics and flight dynamics of small birds, bats and insects, as well as of micro …

Effects of chordwise, spanwise, and isotropic flexibility on the force generation and
propulsive efficiency of flapping wings are elucidated. For a moving body immersed in …

Flapping wings often feature a leading-edge vortex (LEV) that is thought to enhance the lift
generated by the wing. Here the lift on a wing featuring a leading-edge vortex is considered …

Recent work on the aerodynamics of flapping flight reveals fundamental differences in the
mechanisms of aerodynamic force generation between fixed and flapping wings. When fixed …

We present a fluid–structure interactions (FSI) model of insect flapping flight with flexible
wings. This FSI-based model is established by loosely coupling a finite element method …

Micro-and nano air vehicles are defined as “extremely small and ultra-lightweight air vehicle
systems” with a maximum wingspan length of 15 cm and a weight less than 20 grams. Here …

Most insects and hummingbirds can generate lift during both upstroke and downstroke with
a nearly horizontal flapping stroke plane, and perform precise hovering flight. Further, most …

Hovering is a miracle of insects that is observed for all sizes of flying insects. Sizing effect in
insect hovering on flapping-wing aerodynamics is of interest to both the micro-air-vehicle …