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Links last verified on 22 08 01

Introduction

Bird and Insect Flight
Ornithopters

Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs)
Micro Air Vehicles - Related Projects

Blimps and other Flying Objects

Miniature Engines

Miniature Robotics

Introduction

The work of Lawrence Hargrave continues more than 100 years on with the development of the so called 'Micro Air Vehicle' or MAV or when relating to all aircraft, not only those of the small variety, UAV or 'Unmanned Aerial Vehicle'.

Much interest is being shown by science and industry for remote monitoring in dangerous environments as well as sections of the military for 'discrete' surveillance duties in the battlefield. Areas of study such as fluid dynamics, electronics, hydraulics and optics as they relate to minature vehicles are being examined to develop design criteria and in several cases real world devices.

Some of the vehicles being investigated are ornithopters, ('flapping wings'). The design of these formally 19th, 20th and now 21st century 'flappers', is largely based on the study of the flight mechanisms of birds and insects.

In the introductory phase of this site and possible development of such devices at Monash University, we present an extensive set of links to organisations and individuals working in these areas of endeavour.

All sites listed below were active on September 12, 2000. Please report any broken links - suggestions for additional links are also most welcome.

Bird and Insect Flight

Aerial Locomotion: The experiments of E J Marey
http://www.expo-marey.com/ANGLAIS/novo2.htm

Against All Odds: How Bugs Take Wing
http://www.memagazine.org

Biomechanics of Insect Flight: Form, Function, Evolution
http://pup.princeton.edu/TOCs/c6881.html

The buzz: Wings flip, air whirls, bugs lift
http://www.findarticles.com/m1200/25_155/55067736/p1/article.jhtml

Coen's Insect Flight Research
http://marlow.fbw.vu.nl/users/coen/coenflight.html

Evolution of Flight, (The)
http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/adapt/evolutio.htm

Flapping Flight
http://www.nurseminerva.co.uk/adapt/flapping.htm

Hydro- and Aerodynamics of Animal Swimming and Flight
http://ostrich.usc.edu/rsg/bfd/biofluid_index.html

Insect Flight Research
http://faculty.washington.edu/callis/Flight/Insect_Flight_A-99.htm

Insect Flight Mechanisms: Anatomy and Kinematics
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~crk4y/research/flight.PDF

Requires Acrobat Reader

Insects in flight
http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/general_info/bhop/insectsinflight.html

Novel aerodynamics of insect flight: applications to micro-air vehicles
http://www.biologists.com/JEB/202/23/jeb2214.html

Nature's minature flying machines
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/991125/991125-1.html

Robofly
http://www.berkeley.edu

Simulation of Insect Flight by Stephen Childress and Jane Wang
http://www.math.nyu.edu/AML/fly.html

Includes excellent Fly animation based on: C. P. Ellington, The Aerodynamics of Hovering Insect Flight Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 305, 1 (1984).

Wing Rotation and the Aerodynamic Basis of Insect Flight
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu

Ornithopters

Anatomical Investigation: The Work of Borelli
http://cccw.adh.bton.ac.uk/schoolofdesign/MA.COURSE/09/LMovement12.html

Clark BiWing Ornithopter
http://ohtm.org/clark.html

Don Slusarczyk Indoor Web Page - Ornithopter
http://www.indoorfreeflight.com/orni.htm

Flapping, Articles concerned with
http://web.kyoto-inet.or.jp/people/kazuho/ref-e.htm

Flapping Flight
http://www.catskill.net/evolution/flight/

Flutterby, The
http://www.intergate.bc.ca/business/flyables/frntroom/flutterby.htm

Low Speed Aerodynamics and Aircraft Flight Dynamics
http://www.utias.toronto.edu/lowsped.htm

Ornithopter, Cayley's
http://boiler.open.ac.uk/ornithopter.html

Ornithopter Design, Dr. James Delaurier's and Jeremy Harris'
http://amber.aae.uiuc.edu/~m-selig/misc.html

Progress in Flying Machines - Part 1: Wings and Parachutes, November 1891
http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu

Royal Aeronautical Society Human Powered Aircraft Group, The
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/j_d_mcintyre/hpag.htm

Micro Air Vehicles

Aerodynamics of Micro-Air Vehicles

"Recently, there has been a serious effort to design aircraft that are as small as possible for special, limited-duration missions. These vehicles might carry visual, acoustic, chemical or biological sensors.

These aircraft, called micro-air vehicles, are of interest because electronic detection and surveillance sensor equipment can now be miniaturized so that the entire payload weighs about one ounce. The long term goal of this project is to develop aircraft systems that weigh less then one ounce, have about a three inch wing span and can fly for 20 to 50 minutes at between 25 and 35 m.p.h..

Although it is not possible to meet all of the design requirements for a micro-air vehicle with current technology, research is proceeding on all of the system components at various government laboratories, companies and universities.

One of the areas of interest is the aerodynamic efficiency of various fixed wing, flapping wing, or rotary wing concepts since these vehicles are very small and must fly at very low speeds. The corresponding chord Reynolds number range is from 1,000 to about 50,000.

Very little if any, information on the performance of various airfoil/wing shapes exists, however, there has been a long history of natural flight studies (e.g. insects and small birds) which may be helpful.

Experiments to determine the flow physics and aerodynamic performance of various airfoil/wing shapes at chord Reynolds number below 50,000 have begun at the Hessert Center. Both fixed and flapping wing configurations are of interest"

Thomas J. Mueller

A new thrust in DERA micro air vehicle development
http://defence-data.com/f2000/pagefa1006.htm

AAI Corporation - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems
http://www.aaicorp.com/defense/uav/index9a.htm

Aerofoils

Aerofoil (Airfoil) Analysis and Plotting for Kit, Homebuilt and Model Airplanes
http://www.hanleyinnovations.com/air_16.html

Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, The
http://www.auvsi.org

Evolution of the Aerofoil (Airfoil), The
http://firstflight.open.ac.uk/evolution.html

Aerosonde Ltd
http://www.aerosonde.com

airspacemag.com: April/May 2000 Supplemental Info
http://www.airspacemag.com/asm/mag/supp/am00/uSPY.html

An Extended Role for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the RAAF
Air Power Studies Centre Working Paper 46: (1996)
http://www.defence.gov.au/aerospacecentre/publish/paper46.htm

BEAR - Berkeley Aerobot
http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/bear/title.html

a bird in the Hand, : Miniature and micro air vehicles challenge conventional thinking
http://idr.janes.com/samples/idr0506.html

Counterair: The Cutting Edge
http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap08/v3c8-1.htm#Introduction

cranfield.ac.uk: Subject Listing for Remotely piloted vehicles
http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/subject-listing/rpv.html

Employment of the Global Hawk Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
http://www.defence.gov.au/aerospacecentre/publish/paper76.htm

Free Flying Micro Platform and Papa-TV-Bot: evolving autonomously hovering mobots
http://www.media.mit.edu/~stefanm/FFMP/FFMP.html

ISSMO Micro Aerial Vehicle Competition
http://aemes.aero.ufl.edu/~issmo/mav/mav.htm

ISSMO: What are Micro Aerial Vehicles
http://www.aero.ufl.edu/~issmo/mav/info.htm

Micro Air Vehicle Competition: 1999
http://www.aero.ufl.edu/microav99/

Micro Aerial Vehicles?, (What are..)
http://www.aero.ufl.edu/~issmo/mav/info.htm

Micro Air Vehicle Entomopter Flight, Reciprocating Chemical Muscle (RCM) for
http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu

Micro Air Vehicles

Learning from the Birds and Bees
http://www.hightechcareers.com/doc198e/mav198e.html

Competition, The
http://www.hightechcareers.com/doc198e/competition198e.html

Flight Control: Realities and Challenges
http://www.hightechcareers.com/doc198e/flightcontrol198e.html

UCLA Feasibility Study, The
http://www.hightechcareers.com/doc198e/uclamav198e.html

Micro Planes, Matt's
http://rcplanet.com/mattsmicroplanes/index.html

Miniature Autonomous Flying Vehicles
http://www.people.virginia.edu/~crk4y/research/mav.htm

Military Robotics - a bi-weekly trade newsletter on unmanned systems
http://www2.dgsys.com/~jlovece/

Mites at the cutting edge
http://www.it.fairfax.com.au

MLB Company
http://www.spyplanes.com/

The MLB Bat
http://www.spyplanes.com/Products/Bat_60/mlb_bat60.html

NASA Space Telerobotics Program
http://ranier.oact.hq.nasa.gov/telerobotics_page/telerobotics.shtm

NASA Wallops Flight Facility (Welcome to the)
http://uav.wff.nasa.gov/

Navy UAV
http://uav.navair.navy.mil/home.htm

Pioneer UAV
http://www.aaicorp.com/pui/index.htm

RIPAN - Research In the PolarAtmosphere using remotely Navigated aircraft
http://www.irf.se/ripan/

Robert C. Michelson's Micro Air Vehicle "Entomopter" Project
http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu

Smart Dust
http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pister/SmartDust/

Shadow 200: The AAI TUAV Team
http://www.shadow200.com/

SR X70 Micro Electric Sailplane
http://www.srbatteries.com/x70.htm

S-TEC Unmanned Technologies
http://www.sentryuav.com/gallery.html

Traffic Surveillance Drone
http://avdil.gtri.gatech.edu/RCM/RCM/DroneProject.html

UAV 'Ariel' - Research aircraft
http://www.aero.usyd.edu.au/wwwdocs/ariel.html

UAV AFFTC

"The [US] Air Force has entered a new era that of the "uninhabited aerial vehicle" or UAV. As we near the 21st century, military casualties have become increasingly unacceptable. Ever since U-2 pilot Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960, the high risk of using manned aircraft for reconnaissance over hostile territory has been crystal clear. [...] It has already been determined that the answer lies in the use of "uninhabited", high-flying and nearly invisible UAVs that can stay airborne for long periods"

UAV Micro Vehicles
http://afftc.edwards.af.mil:80

UAV Main
http://afftc.edwards.af.mil:80

UAV Pioneer
http://afftc.edwards.af.mil:80

UAV Pioneer deployment in the Persion Gulf
http://afftc.edwards.af.mil:80

USC Robotics
http://www-robotics.usc.edu/

USydAerospace
Added September 16, 2000

Research on Robotic Aircraft
http://www.aero.usyd.edu.au

Aust UAV SIG - Australian UAV Special Interest Group
http://www.aero.usyd.edu.au

and including the papers

"Aerospace Industry Opportunities in Australia - UAVs Are they ready this time? Are we?"
presented to the Sydney Royal Aeronautical Society - 26 November 1997 Adobe Acrobat file

"UAVs Over Australia - Market and Opportunities"
presented to the Bristol RPV/UAV Systems Conference, Bristol, UK - 30 March to 1 April 1998 Adobe Acrobat file

Download Acrobat Reader

and the associated sites (prime site no longer active)

Mesicopter
http://aero.stanford.edu/mesicopter/

Mesicopter, The, - a slide show
http://aero.stanford.edu/mesicopter/htmlversion/sld001.htm

Mesicopter, The, - Image Archive
http://adg.stanford.edu/mesicopter/imageArchive/

Micro Air Vehicles - Related Projects

Aerial Video Systems

Aero Telemetry
http://www.aerotelemetry.com/

AD Aerospace
http://www.ad-aero.co.uk/

Airborne Video and Digital Camera Research
http://www.carleton.ca/~dking/index.html

EyeBot: a controller for wheeled, walking or flying robots
http://www.ee.uwa.edu.au/~braunl/eyebot/index.html

Perry Designs: Unmanned Navigation and Control
http://members.aol.com/uavnav/pdc.html

Blimps and other Flying Objects

GPS Formation Flying Blimps
http://sun-valley.stanford.edu/users/howjo/ff/blimps/blimps.html

"This project seeks to demonstrate that Carrier-Phase Differential GPS (CDGPS) can be used to accurately sense and control a cluster of spacecraft on-orbit. The research will concentrate on developing the GPS algorithms necessary to determine the relative position and attitude between multiple vehicles that can undergo general 3D motions with relatively large separations. These new algorithms will be used to demonstrate robust formation initialization and maintenance on a new 3D testbed that uses lighter-than-air vehicles to more accurately reflect the dynamics in space. Project is funded by Draper Laboratory"

Dirigible Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (DAAV) Project
http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/undergrad/euss/sg/ARG/func.html

Mobile Airships & Blimps
http://www.execulink.com/~blimps/

West Coast Blimps & Electronics
http://www1.ridgecrest.ca.us/~jpiri/

Miniature Engines

Miniature Engines, Building
http://www.prismz.com/minipower/index.html

Sandia MEMS: Technical Information
http://www.mdl.sandia.gov/micromachine/techinfo.html

Small Gas Turbines
http://freespace.virgin.net/dyno.power/gasturbine/

Miniature Robotics

Advanced Robotics
http://www.robotbooks.com/advanced-robotics.htm

Hobby Robots, Mobile Robots, Androids, and Robot Soccer
http://www.robotbooks.com/hobby-robots.htm

LEGO Mindstorms
http://www.robotbooks.com/Lego-Mindstorms.htm

Muscle Wire Robots
http://www.robotbooks.com/Muscle_Wires.htm

Robofly
http://www.berkeley.edu

War Robots
http://www.robotbooks.com/war-robots.htm