Abstract: Similarities and differences of a large-scale flapping-wing robot with fixed-wing UAVs in equations of motion, trim curves, and aerodynamic forces in forward flight are discussed in this paper and a simplified model for flapping flight is presented. Due to the high Wing to Total Weight (WTW) ratio of large-scale ornithopters, simple rigid body dynamics is not accurate enough for flight dynamics modeling. On the other hand, the multi-body dynamics associated with flapping gives little insight into the behavior of the resulting model due to complexity of equations. It is also difficult to design proper controllers for such complicated models. In this paper, the effects of different terms of multi-body equations of ornithopter on the estimated aerodynamic forces are studied via experimental flight data. A simpler but yet accurate set of equations is obtained by removing less effective terms from original relations. The presented model is in the form of normal aircraft equations plus some additional terms which can be used in different control and estimation processes. In addition, trim conditions of forward flight are extracted using several flight tests, and corresponding periodic behavior of states and forces are studied. These studies are applicable for identifying time-periodic models.

Key words: flapping wing robot, bionic robot, ornithopter, trim condition analysis, low-order modeling, aerodynamic force estimation