Flight Test Measurement and Assessment of a Flapping Micro Air Vehicle

Flight test of flapping micro air vehicles (FMAVs) is carried out using an instrumented measurement system to obtain various engineering parameters and hence to assess the flight performance of the vehicles through the data investigation. An indoor flight test facility equipped with a motion capture system and tracking cameras is used for the work presented in this paper. Maneuvers including straight-level flight, ground flapping, takeoff and landing are tested. Spatial position and orientation data are obtained from the retro-reflective tracking markers attached to the vehicles. Subsequent test analysis is carried out by generating performance parameters from raw data and then assessing the flight performance by comparison of the vehicles. The main findings of this work confirm that the test method and procedures presented here enable the systematic numerical data measurement and assessment of the flying performances of these vehicles, and show the applicability for the test and evaluation of general flapping MAVs.