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Received 28 July 2006; received in revised form 23 March 2007; accepted 27 March 2007
Available online 5 April 2007
Abstract
The flight of birds or insects has fascinated scholars and physicists for many centuries. Flapping motion, as shown by many nature flyers, is the
most efficient way of flying objects whose size are smaller than 6 in. In this paper, we used MEMS technology to fabricate the flapping wings. They
are composed of a pure parylene right wing and a PVDF–parylene composite left wing. In the wind-tunnel test, the lift signals from both PVDF
(polyvinylidene fluoride) and the load-cell have similar qualitative behavior. The PVDF sensor could only export the lift signals from the left wing.
By comparing to the total lift signal picked by the load-cell from the wind-tunnel facility, we can calculate out and separate the lift contributions
by left and right wing, respectively. Therefore, we found a new design methodology to adjust the aerodynamic performance of MAV by changing
the phase lag between the two flapping wings by fine tuning of the mechanism linkages. After integrating lithium battery into the MAV, it can
perform a free flight with a range of 10–15 m. Finally, the MAV had a successful flight via wireless control with a range of 40 m and a total flight
time of 10 s.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: MAV (micro aerial vehicle); Flapping wing; Parylene; On-site lift; PVDF (polyvinyliden fluoride)
0924-4247/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.sna.2007.03.026
96 L.-J. Yang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 139 (2007) 95–103
Although the previous interesting works [2–8] of MAVs man- ical problem. The current trend is to employ small, palm-sized
aged to fly via wireless remote control, none of the programs has wing foils. However, lift and thrust forces produced by the move-
been able to achieve a long and sustainable flight. Moreover, the ment of wing flapping also decreased with size reducing of the
detailed mechanism of the flapping flight is still under study and airfoil, and therefore the wing size should be sufficiently large.
the unsteady aerodynamic characteristics of the flapping MAVs For this reason, adopting the titanium-alloy of high strength-
are unclear. to-mass ratio as the airframe material and parylene as the skin
In order to gather more information during the flapping material of flapping wing is an appropriate compromise. Note
maneuver, we measured the aerodynamic force of a Caltech- that a light-weighted and high-power battery is also needed.
like MAV by conventional load-cells in the wind-tunnel, and To obtain an accurate size of a titanium-alloy airframe with no
also proposed the integration of PVDF piezoelectric foils to the residual stress is not easy with the conventional machining meth-
parylene flapping wings of the MAV to pick up the in situ lift ods. Interior residual stress could cause a warping deformation
force. We used MEMS technology to fabricate a titanium-alloy in the structures of airframes, and easily distorts the geometry
wing frame and a set of gear-reduction transmission compo- of the airfoil. Therefore, instead of the regular machining tech-
nents, and deposited conformal parylene film on the wing frame niques, wet etching technique is employed to tailor the airframe
as the airfoil skin [3,4,14]. The actuation force or torque avail- structures from a titanium-alloy plate and no apparent residual
able for the flapping wings is drained from the gear-reduction stress is found. Parylene coating technique is applied to laying
transmission set coupled to a high-speed dc motor powered by the wing skin attached on the titanium frame. The followings
commercial poly-lithium batteries. The parylene wing skin also are the design details of the airframe and a gear transmission
serves as an electrical isolation layer between the PVDF piezo- system associated with the airframe.
electric sensing element and the titanium frame. The on-site lift
information acquired from a PVDF sensing skin was done by the
2.1. Design of the titanium-alloy airframe
authors of this presented work [15]. In ref. [15], we employed
the four-linkage concept to design a transmission mechanism for
The flapping wing motion of a nature bird includes flap-
the MAV. Although the two wings of the MAV have the same
ping, twisting, folding and gliding. These functions correlate
flapping angle, there exists unavoidably a mechanical phase lag
to the high efficiency of flapping mechanism. In order to reach
between them by virtue of the transmission’s mechanical prin-
very light weight, the MAV in this work has flapping movement
ciple of operation. The result in this paper proposes a novel
of only one degree-of-freedom on purpose. The flapping wing
approach of integrating a parylene–PVDF hybrid wing in an
must be able to sustain higher flapping frequency and provide
in situ way to monitor the lift force of a flapping MAV in the
sufficient force for flight. Higher flapping frequency involves
wind-tunnel test. We found a new design methodology to adjust
concerns with the structural integrity. Designing the flapping
the aerodynamic performance of MAV by changing the phase
wings with high strength and low weight is a crucial issue.
lag between the two flapping wings through fine tuning of the
We use existing MEMS technology for fabricating the wings
mechanism linkages.
to ensure the accurate size control and smartness of the fly-
ing system. The material of the airframe is titanium-alloy (the
2. Design concept mechanical properties of titanium grade 4: density = 4.54 g/cm3 ;
Young’s modulus = 104 GPa; tensile strength = 552 MPa). The
The issue of reducing weights for an air vehicle, especially for detailed dimensions of two types of the flapping wings as well
the one with flapping wings discussed in this paper, is a very crit- as their wing frames are shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Two types of flapping wing frame made by Ti-alloy with 250 m in thickness and 2 mm in width, and the areas of Wing A and Wing B as 64.50 and 108.75 cm2 ,
respectively [15].
L.-J. Yang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 139 (2007) 95–103 97
Fig. 3. Stroke angles of two flapping wings vs. one period of time.
Table 1
Designs of the transmission system The non-zero coefficient dij of PVDF film are
⎧
Stroke angle (◦ )
⎨ d31 = 20,
⎪
BC (mm) Lag (max) pC/N
8 60.5 13.3 d32 = 2, pC/N (4)
9 53.0 9.4 ⎪
⎩
10 47.2 6.4 d33 = −30, pC/N
11 42.7 4.1
12 39.0 2.5
We assume the flapping wing as a plane-stress problem
(σ z = 0). The charge density along the Z-direction therefore can
98 L.-J. Yang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 139 (2007) 95–103
be derived as: film needs calibration or quantitative comparison with the load-
cell sensors installed in the wind-tunnel available for the test of
ρz (x, y, z) = d31 σx (x, y, z) + d32 σy (x, y, z) (5) MAVs in this work.
Combining Eqs. (2)–(5), we get the total charge Q in terms
of the pressure difference p and the stiffness function k as 3. Fabrication
follows:
The fabrication process of titanium-alloy MEMS wings with
Q= ρz (x, y, z) dA PVDF sensing film is shown in Fig. 4 and described as below.
S
= p(x, y, z)
d31
+
d32
dA (6) • Step (a): A titanium-alloy substrate is cleaned with acetone
S kx (x, y, z) ky (x, y, z) and isopropyl alcohol (IPA). Then, it is flushed with de-
ionized water (DI water).
Because the stiff function kx and ky are not uniform over the • Step (b): Both sides of the titanium-alloy substrate are coated
wing skin area S, the lift force L in Eq. (1) cannot be directly sep- with photoresist (PR), AZ4620, by a spin coater. Exact con-
arated from Eq. (6). We temporarily and equivalently replace the trol of the rotation speed is exercised to get 10 m thick PR,
bracket in Eq. (6) with d*, and obtain the following expression: serving as a mask layer for subsequent operation.
• Step (c): The upside PR is patterned by an I-line UV contact
Q = d∗L (7) aligner. This step defines a pattern as an etching masking
for the titanium-alloy frames against chemical etchant. The
In Eq. (7), the total charge Q can be also expressed by a
developer for the AZ4620 PR is AZ400K.
voltage V across the piezoelectric (PVDF) capacitor C by the
• Step (d): The titanium-alloy substrate is dipped in hydrofluo-
relationship
ric (HF) acid to etch uncovered titanium for 50 min. After the
Q = CV (8) etching process, the geometry of the wing frames appears.
• Step (e): The substrate then put in acetone to strip PR from
Combining Eqs. (7) and (8), the lift force can be determined both sides of the titanium-alloy substrate. All the parts are
linearly with the voltage V. cleaned and flushed with DI water.
• Step (f): The first parylene layer is deposited on the titanium-
Q C
L= ∗ = ×V (9) alloy in the SCS PDS-2010 parylene coater. For this step,
d d∗ 15 g of parylene dimmer yields an approximately 11.5 m
The simplified model described by Eq. (9) gives us a guideline thick film and this parylene film is used as an insulated layer.
in principle that the lift information can be obtained electrically • Step (g): A PVDF film of 25 m thick is pasted on the frames.
from the voltage given by the PVDF piezoelectric film in an • Step (h): The PVDF film and the wing frame are coated with
in situ way. In addition, such an output signal from the PVDF the second parylene layer.
Fig. 4. Process flow of a PVDF–parylene wing: (a) clean the titanium-alloy substrate; (b) coat the double sides of the titanium-alloy substrate with photoresist (PR);
(c) photo-lithographically pattern the PR on the top side as the etching mask; (d) etch the titanium-alloy substrate to wing frames by HF acid; (e) strip PR and clean;
(f) coat the first parylene film as the insulated layer; (g) paste titanium-alloy frame with PVDF; (h) coat the second parylene film all over the PVDF and wing frame,
and compete PVDF–parylene wings [15].
L.-J. Yang et al. / Sensors and Actuators A 139 (2007) 95–103 99
Fig. 5. MAV model: (a) the completed PVDF–parylene flapping wing. (b) Setup for testing the flapping wings with PVDF sensing skin in the wind-tunnel.
Fig. 6. The appearance of the flapping MAVs (including gear transmission system, wings, dc motor, fuselage, and tail): (a) Wing A with mass of 7.91 g; (b) Wing B
with mass of 7.52 g.
Having done the process mentioned above, we can get the increased from 1 to 7 m/s, the lift force increase vigorously. The
PVDF flapping wings shown in Fig. 5. The parylene flapping acquired data of lift force versus wind speed are shown in Fig. 8.
wings without PVDF sensing film are obtained by the similar This result reveals that Wing B has a greater lift force than the
process, except using another pasting tape as the supporting stuff case of Wing A (Caltech-like) due to the larger wing area. Both
in Step (g) and delaminating the tape after Step (h) with acetone.
After careful fabrication and assembly, two types of MAVs in
this work are shown in Fig. 6. The two-wing MAV named Wing
A (Caltech-like MAV) has a mass of 7.91 g, whereas the single-
wing MAV Wing B has a mass of 7.52 g. The total mass of the
two MAVs are increased to 13.91 and 13.52 g, respectively, after
they are combined with empennage and poly-lithium batteries
additionally.
U
J= (12)
2φfb
Fig. 13. Deduced phase lag of lift force from the PVDF sensor vs. different lags
of gear transmission systems.
5. Conclusion
Acknowledgements [12] S. Ho, H. Nassef, T.N. Pornsinsirirak, Y.C. Tai, Unsteady aerodynamics
and flow control for flapping wing flyers, Prog. Aerosp. Sci. 39 (2003)
635–681.
We would like to thank the financial support from National
[13] M.H. Dickinson, K. Götz, The wake dynamics and flight forces of the
Science Council of Taiwan by the project numbers of NSC-93- fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, J. Exp. Biol. 199 (99) (1996) 2085–
2212-E-032-012 and NSC-94-2212-E-032-012. The valuable 2104.
comments and writing corrections from Dr. Beelee Chua of [14] Website http://parylene.com.
Arkal Medical Inc. and Dr. Tzu-yang Chen are also highly [15] C.-K. Hsu, J.-Y. Ho, G.-H. Feng, H.-M. Shih, L.-J. Yang, A flapping MAV
with PVDF–parylene composite skin, in: Proceedings of the APCOT-2006
appreciated.
(SASN-A0019), Singapore, June 25–28, 2006, p. 253.
[16] C. Liu, Foundations of MEMS, 1st ed., Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006, p. 256.
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