Development of a Novel Butterfly-inspired Flapping Wing Air Vehicle

This paper presents a novel flapping wing air vehicle inspired by butterfly, its structure can be summarized as three parts: the main body, the left wing, and the right wing. The ultra-lightweight carbon fiber rods and miniature 3D printed structures are used to compose the structural frame and connect the three parts together. Membrane wing structure is adopted to generate lift and achieve lightweight. A 3-gram onboard flight control electronic system is developed to ensure the flyability. Both indoor and outdoor free-flight experiments were conducted, and the results validate the controllability of the biomimetic butterfly prototype.