A bioinspired approach to torque control in an insect-sized flapping-wing robot

A flapping-wing micro air vehicle was built that mimics the control strategy utilized by fruit flies which indirectly modulate wing angle of attack to generate yaw torques. This prototype could also generate roll torques by oscillating the wing hinge at the flapping frequency with an appropriate phase. The roll, yaw and pitch torque generation capability was characterized using a custom single-axis torque sensor. The vehicle could produce torques with magnitudes of 0.8/μNm, 1/μNm and 0.8/μNm of roll, yaw and pitch torque respectively. Based off the known inertial properties of the robot, we estimate that it is capable of achieving turning performances comparable to fruit flies.