Variable amplitude ornithopter control.

Note: Many thanks to TaTiSWEAR for showing that the idea worked. He worked on this before I did.

This ornithopter has only two moving parts, the wings. These cone forward or back while flapping to achieve pitch control, moving the net lift of the wings creating a moment. They flap at different amplitudes to create a moment in roll, making one wing produce more lift then the other. Yaw is controlled by a single thruster. Flapping amplitude is changed at a constant frequency to control lift, similar to collective on a helicopter (blade pitch changes and RPM is constant). Changing the amplitude changes the speed of the wing's per stroke, thus changing the lift they produce. The wing's are not counterbalanced but they are very light and flap at a high frequency, this makes the vibration minimal.

The flight characteristics are very similar to that of a helicopter, only better! there is a natural tendency to hover and there is no retreating blade stall (as the wing's are moving in opposite directions). It can also move faster as the wing's will start to move similarly to a birds (lift and thrust on the downstroke and nothing on the upstroke). The orni is stabilized by a E2 speedometer offsetting the controls to dampen rotation, there are no auto-leveling inputs though.

The wing's are at 45 degrees to the body to have equal forces acting on all axes. This is the only stable configuration I've found. If the wing's are at 90 degrees, there is a massive upright tendency in the pitch axis and none on the roll axis. This gives very odd control characteristics. At 45 degrees the uprighting tendency in the same for both axes. Pitch control is sluggish though, as the wings have to cone a lot to move the net lift an appreciable distance. Roll control is very efficient and fast (very little difference in amplitude is needed to achieve fast rotation) but increases vibrations due to unequal reaction torque from the wings. At high flapping frequencies the increase is negligible though. Pitch does not induce vibrations.

This DOES NOT USE FIN, it uses E2 to calculate wing lift. Fin produces lift perpendicular to the FACE of a prop, the E2 produces lift perpendicular to the props DIRECTION OF MOTION. This improves stability and reduces drag. The wings angle of attack is constrained by elastics. These are bent by drag changing the angle. Each wing is attached to a rod which is connected to a pair of hydraulics. These are connected to a sinusoidal input and are fast enough to stay in sync with it.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• ornithopter
• hover
• insect
• bug
• wing
• flapping
• oscillation

[glmcdona21]

Great job :)

Is the yaw controlled by the flapping wings somehow as well?

[XXXmags]

@glmcdona21 No, it's controlled by a thruster but I just got yaw to be controlled by the wings. Check my new video "Ornithopter uneven drag yaw control"

[MyMMC]

still no tutorials...

[XXXmags]

@MyMMC Theres a couple of things I still want to work on, but it will be worth the wait.

[xderwinxd]

i see so much cool helicopters one with swashplate one with rotor controll one with wings O.o and no tutorials jeez make one pls :)

[MyMMC]

@XXXmags hope so :-)

im acctually work on a fin plane with a real motor but i still want to know how u made this helicopter rotor...

[dragonkid517]

Amazing! im speechless

[Rohan2300]

I have a project for you. a dragon that flies using its actual wings. I've built flying dragons before, just they don't use their wings for more than aesthetics.

[700Fantomas007]

You deserve so many more views!

[Blaylock1988]

I think you have successfully created Gmod's first bumblebee lol.