Periodic Optimal Control for Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Flapping Wing Vehicles

Periodic optimal control is considered as a means for reducing the fuel consumption of flapping wing vehicles. The reason underlying this possibility is that flapping the wings yields a drag increase when compared to a non-flapping wing. It is shown that this drag increase is due to different effects associated with flapping. A flight mechanics model of a flapping wing vehicle is developed for describing the motion involving phases of wing flapping and nonflapping. Furthermore, an optimization method is used to construct solutions for minimizing the fuel consumption. Results on the optimized states and controls are presented to show the effects of periodic optimal control on the flight behavior. Furthermore, results from a performance evaluation are presented. These results show that periodic optimal control yields a significant reduction of the fuel consumption when compared with steady-state flight.