Yao-Wei Chin

School of Mechanical and

Aerospace Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798
e-mail: ywchin@ntu.edu.sg
Spring-Assisted Motorized
Ziyuan Ang
School of Mechanical and Transmission for Efficient Hover

Aerospace Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798
Yukai Luo
School of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798
Woei-Leong Chan
Temasek Laboratories,
National University of Singapore,
Singapore 117411
e-mail: tslcwl@nus.edu.sg
Javaan S. Chahl
School of Engineering,
University of South Australia,
Mawson Lakes 5095, SA, Australia
e-mail: Javaan.Chahl@unisa.edu.au
Gih-Keong Lau1
School of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering,
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore 639798
e-mail: mgklau@ntu.edu.sg
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by Four Flapping Wings
Elastic storage has been reported to help flying insects save inertial power when flapping
their wings. This motivates recent research and development of elastic storage for
flapping-wing micro air vehicles (fwMAVs) and their ground (tethered) flight tests. The
previous designs of spring-loaded transmissions are relatively heavy or bulky; they have
not yet been adopted by freely hovering prototypes of fwMAVs, especially those with four
flapping wings. It is not clear if partial elastic storage can still help save power for
flapping flight while not overloading the motorized transmission. Here, we developed
ultralight and compact film hinges as elastic storage for four flapping wings. This spring-
assisted transmission was motor driven such that the wing beat frequency was higher
than the natural frequency of elastically hinged wings. Our experiments show that spring
recoil helps accelerate wing closing thus generating more thrust. When powered by a
3.18 g brushless motor, this 13.4 g fwMAV prototype with spring-assisted transmission
can take off by beating four flexible wings (of 240 mm span) with up to 21–22 g
thrust generation at 22–23 Hz. Due to lower disk loading and high-speed reduction, indi-
rect drive of the four elastically hinged wings can produce a thrust per unit of electrical
power of up to 4.6 g/W. This electrical-power-specific thrust is comparable to that
generated by direct drive of a propeller, which was recommended by the motor (AP-03
7000kv) manufacturer. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4041430]

1 Introduction Elastic energy storage is thought to help flying insects recover

kinetic energy stored in the motion of their flapping wings that
Very few flapping-wing micro air vehicles (fwMAVs) can
would otherwise be lost during deceleration [13–16]. Inspired by
hover untethered (carrying an onboard battery) [1–6]. Those capa-
apparatus of flying insects, various forms of elastic storage have
ble of untethered hover only do so for a short time [7]. To increase
been proposed and developed for bio-inspired flapping wing
hover endurance, indirect drive of wing transmission by a motor
micro air vehicles. Benefits of elastic storage were demonstrated
must be efficient in addition to efficient aerodynamics [4,8–10]. A
on a tethered or wired flight test, mainly for indirect drive of two
lot of effort has been applied to optimization of flapping-flight
flapping wings [3,17–23]. Forms of elastic storage previously
apparatus for untethered hovering flight. For example, a 16 g–20 g
developed include a linear coil spring [17,24], two torsion coil
DelFly II [3,7,11,12] has an ultralight brushless motor (1.1 g)
springs [25,26], a thoracic shell [18,27,28], and cross flexure [29].
custom-designed for driving four 140 mm-long wings; it can
Baek et al. [24] added a long coil spring to a crank-slider mecha-
hover for 8 min when powered by a 3.6 g battery. Yet, a bigger
nism of Interactive Toy’s VAMP RC ornithopter (with two wings
hovering fwMAV is disadvantaged by higher disk loading. For
of 220 mm span). They showed that the spring helped to save elec-
example, a 440 g Mentor with four bat-sized wings each of
trical power above a cut-off frequency, for example, a power sav-
180 mm half span can hover for only 20 s despite using an over-
ing of up to 19% at 16 Hz. The previous designs of spring-loaded
sized motor (Astroflight 020 of 70.9 g) and a 154 g battery. The
transmissions are, however, relatively heavy or bulky; they had
short hover time of Mentor was caused by battery overheating
not yet been adopted by freely hovering micro air vehicles, espe-
while the motor was overloaded. Instead of increasing the battery
cially those with four flapping wings [1–4,7,11,30] which were
weight and capacity, a transmission redesign can help to improve
thought to incur more inertial power loss than those with two flap-
the motor’s electromechanical conversion rate by reducing the tor-
ping wings given the same total wing area. Full recovery of four
que requirement by flapping wings.
wings’ kinetic energy requires a stiffer spring, which may stall the
driving motor.
1
Corresponding author. In this study, we investigate whether partial elastic storage can
Contributed by the Mechanisms and Robotics Committee of ASME for help a motorized transmission to save power for indirect drive of
publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANISMS AND ROBOTICS. Manuscript received April
22, 2018; final manuscript received August 30, 2018; published online October 5, four flapping wings. This partial elastic storage is realized in the
2018. Assoc. Editor: David J. Cappelleri. form of a pair of film hinges, each of which supports a diagonal

Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics Copyright V

C 2018 by ASME DECEMBER 2018, Vol. 10 / 061014-1
wing pair. Stiffness of the film hinge will be designed such that
natural frequency of the hinged wings is lower than the opera-
tional wingbeat frequency. We shall show the effects of partial
elastic storage on wing kinematics, thrust generation, and power
expenditure. Finally, we shall benchmark the performance of this
spring-assisted flapping-wing transmission with a propeller’s
using the same motor drive.
2 The Energetic Cost of Flapping Flight
For driving a flapping-wing transmission, a motor needs to con-
vert an input of electrical power into a mechanical power output
(i.e., shaft power). In turn, the shaft power overcomes at least aero-
dynamic power and inertial power. Aerodynamic power Paero is the
power required to move the wings against drag and damping forces
from the air on the wings [16,31–34]. The inertial power Pacc is
incurred for accelerating or decelerating the wings when they recip-
rocate [35]. Addition of a spring promises to recover some of the
inertial power [13,14,36] but requires extra elastic power Pelast. In
this way, the basic mechanical power requirement is given by
Pmech ¼ Paero þ Pacc þ Pelast (1)
This neglects the frictional power loss in the transmission which
is technology dependent.
As for fwMAVs like Mentor and DelFly, four wings open and
close like scissors to produce aerodynamic thrust. Figure 1(a)
shows one of the four wings in action. This wing is a vein-
reinforced foil of prismatic shape and moment of inertia Jo; it is
chordwise flexible for passive wing rotation b, while its leading
edge sweeps a stroke /. Reciprocation by a rocker stroke y at a
distance d from the pivot O yields a wing stroke angle
/ðtÞ ¼ sin1 ðy=dÞ. The stroke angle at the wing closed position is
U0, while that at the wing opened position is 2 U þ U0. The
dynamic stroke angle may deviate from the static value if there is
a presence of transverse flexibility that allows a translation x (see
Fig. 1(c)).
Figure 1(a) shows a film hinge as the simple means of elastic
storage. This film hinge can be modeled as a torsional spring of
rotational stiffness k about the pivot O. The apparent inertial
power for this elastically hinged wing becomes
Fig. 1 Illustration of wing reciprocation about a pivotal film
hinge: (a) isometric view, (b) hinge bending and rocker stroke,
and (c) hinge bending in the presence of transverse flexibility
061014-2 / Vol. 10, DECEMBER 2018
€ /_ þ kð/  Uk0 Þ/_
Pacc þ Pelastic ¼ Jo / (2)
where Uk0 is the load-free angular position of the spring. In the
case of a harmonic profile of wing stroke, the apparent inertial
power vanishes orpdiminishes
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi at the resonant flapping frequency,
i.e., fn ¼ ð1=2pÞ k=Jo . Below this “resonant” flapping fre-
quency, the apparent inertial power is positive; this means that the
elastic storage does not save power below this cut-off frequency
[24].
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3 Methods
This experimental study investigates the effect of elastic storage
on thrust generation by four flapping wings and power expendi-
tures incurred to the motor that drive the wing transmission. Here,
we tested two levels of elastic storage: (1) soft polyimide hinges
of 10 mm width and (2) moderate-stiffness polyimide hinges of
20 mm width, both of 0.127 mm thick and 1 mm long. To isolate
the spring effect, the same motorized transmission was used in the
static flight test. The wing transmission were tuned to produce the
same wing kinematics by shifting the pivot arm d of the wing base
(see Figure 1). Nevertheless, later experiment showed that elastic
storage does impact wing kinematic due to the transverse flexibil-
ity of film hinge and passive wing rotation.
Motivated by the success of DelFly [11] and Mentor [1,30] in
achieving hovering flight, we adopted four flexible flapping wings
for this study. Figure 2 shows a spring-assisted wing transmission
for driving four flapping wings of 240 mm span. These four wings
are grouped into two diagonal pairs, each of which shares a
common leading-spar of full span. These four flexible wings can
open and close upon reciprocation like scissor wings of Luna [37],
DelFly, or Mentor. When opened, the four wings altogether form
an X shape; when closed, they become parallel.
Figure 3 shows a mirror pair of polyimide film hinges which
provide elastic storage for flapping wings. Each film hinge can be
idealized as a pivot with a torsional spring. These film hinges are
compact (1 mm long) and lightweight (0.8 g) to fit axially along
the fuselage, as compared to a more conventional coil spring of
much larger outer diameter [24,25,27,29]. The film hinge is
adjustable by changing its width. The unloaded position of the
hinged wing is located near the horizontal plane toward which the
wings close.
This 13.4 g prototype of fwMAV was powered by a 3.18 g
brushless motor, a 2.72 g lithium-polymer battery, and a 2.72 g
electronics. The wing transmission included a 1.42 g transmission
gearbox (inclusive of a double crank-rocker mechanism), two
elastic hinges of 0.8 g in total, and four flexible wings of 1.8 g in
total, and a 1.18 g fuselage. This prototype of fwMAV could only
perform a guide-wire take off with onboard battery but not a free
flight yet without a tail. Details of wing-transmission design and
experimental setup are elaborated in Secs. 3.1–3.4.
3.1 Ultra-Light Flexible Wing Design. Figure 4 shows the
fabrication of four vein-reinforced wings from two wing planes
but in a complex assembly. Major components of the four wings
are two leading-edge spars of full span and two full-span wing
foils. The wing foils are made of a 23 lm thick Mylar film. The
leading-edge spars are 1 mm diameter carbon rods, while the
chordwise reinforcement veins are 0.5 mm diameter carbon rods.
The two leading spars are staggered axially (front and rear) to
allow room for criss-crossing upon crank-rocker reciprocation. A
common wing planform was used to make two wings (say the top
set) but the left and right leading ledges were supported by two
separate leading-edge spars, front and rear. The top wing pair
forms a V shape when the leading-edge spars cross. Similar con-
struction was applied to the bottom wing pair that forms a K shape
when opened.
Figure 4(d) shows the planform of a monolithic Mylar film that
constitutes a wing pair, either top or bottom set. The planform has
Transactions of the ASME
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Fig. 2 A prototype of spring-assisted motorized transmission for four flapping wings (X wings): (a) a complete assembly
without a tail, (b) breakdown of component weights, (c)–(d) photographs of the wing transmission in angled and side views,
(e)–(f) schematic drawings of the wing transmission in angled and side views, and (g)–(h) front views with the presence or
absence of a brushless motor

Fig. 3 Design and prototype of elastic film hinges for X-wings in the closed position (top row) and the open position (bottom
row)

the left leading edge tilted at an angle from the right one. The lead- Reinforcement veins of a wing foil were laid out like bat wings’
ing edges of the wing planform were folded and adhesively pasted skeletal structure. The chordwise ribs radiate from nearly a quarter
into sleeves. Alignment of these two angled sleeves by slotting two span from the leading-edge spar, one being parallel to the chord
parallel leading-edge spars introduces a slack to the wing film. and one being 45 deg off the chord. The chordwise ribs are minor

Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics DECEMBER 2018, Vol. 10 / 061014-3


Fig. 4 Design and construction of a light wing plane: (a)–(b) schematic drawing showing the assembly of wing film and spar,
(c) photograph of two overlapped wing planes with carbon spar reinforcement, (d) design and dimension of the wing film, and
(e) photographs of the components
carbon rods adhesively taped onto the wing film. They are elasti-
cally disconnected from the leading-edge spar. Such assembly
[11,38] allows passive rotation. This flexible wing shows a span-
wise distribution of wing chord rotation: being zero at the wing
root but being the maximum at the wing tip [39,40]. This is unlike
a uniform chordwise rotation for rigid flapping wings [8,41,42].
Each of the flexible wings weighs approximately m ¼ 0.635 g.
It consists of a leading-edge spar of a R ¼ 120 mm half span and a
mc0 ¼ 0.145 g weight, two chordwise ribs of less than 80 mm long
and mc1 ¼ mc2 ¼ 0.06 g each, and a Mylar film of a half span and
mf ¼ 0.37 g each. Approximated by a prismatic shape, the rota-
tional inertia J0 of this flexible wing in the stroke plane is calcu-
lated to be
 2  2
1 1 R 3R
Jo ¼ mf R2 þ mc0 R2 þ mc1 þ mc2 (3)
3 3 2 4
which is equal to 3.093  106 kgm2. For further weight saving, a
carbon tube, for example, an ultralight carbon tube of 0.028 in
outer diameter and 0.011 in inner diameter (from vDijk Pultrusion
Products, DPP BV),2 can be used in replacement of the existing
carbon rod.
Load capacity of this flexible wing (of half span) comes from
the rigidity of leading-edge reinforcement (major spar) and the
root chord reinforcement (fuselage). While the wing sweeps along
the stroke plane, the inertial load of the wing foil acts on the
leading-edge spar. Hence, the leading-edge spar can flex like a
cantilever under a distributed inertial load. Here, the transverse
(out-of-plane) stiffness was measured to be Ky ¼ 6.74 N/m, while
the mass m is contributed by a whole wing. To avoid excessive
vibration, the leading-edge spar should not be reciprocated faster
than the spar’s natural frequency fn,spar
2
www.cstsales.com
061014-4 / Vol. 10, DECEMBER 2018
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sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 Ky
fn;spar ¼
2p m=3
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 6:74 N=m
¼ ¼ 28:0 Hz (4)
2p 0:635  103 kg=3
This estimate, however, neglects the effect of film tension and
air’s added mass. Prediction of wing flutter is beyond the scope of
this paper. Extra compliance of leading-edge spar was reported to
enlarge the stroke deflection [43].
3.2 Elastic Storage. Here, a film hinge was used to provide a
pivotal support and elastic storage to a diagonal pair of flexible
wings, which shared a common leading edge spar. The film
hinge was made of a strip of a 0.127 mm thick polyimide film
(0.127 mm thick DuPont Kapton HN05) [44] and two carbon-fiber
reinforced patches [27,45] that makes a movable swing plate and
an anchor plate. Here, a polyimide film (Kapton HN05) was
selected for being tough, having high folding endurance and a
large ultimate elongation of up to 72%.
Here, a 1 mm long (L) hinge using a polyimide film of 5 mil
thick (t ¼ 0.127 mm) was designed to achieve an elastic bending
of
2ey L
hy ¼ 6
t
2  0:03  1 mm
¼6 ¼ 627 deg (5)
0:127 mm
based on ey ¼ 3% yield strain. In order to adjust the neutral wing-
closing position to be horizontal, the film hinge was pre-bent to
90 deg and plastically set (without post annealing). Once set,
bending about the new set position can be reversible within the
Transactions of the ASME
elastic limit as calculated above. For example, a 20 deg wing
stroke amplitude should be within the elastic limit.
The level of elastic storage is adjustable by changing the width
of the film hinge, without compromising the angle of elastic bend-
ing. For example, a design with a 20 mm wide film was found to
be adequately stiff while not stalling an electric motor for indirect
drive of four flapping wings. According to the flexure mechanics
[46–48], the torsional stiffness of a 20 mm film hinge is calculated
to be
3
EI 2:5GPa  20 mm  ð0:127 mmÞ =12
k¼ ¼
L 1 mm
¼ 8:53  103 N m=rad
where E is the film’s Young’s modulus of 2.5 GPa, I ¼ wt3/12 for
a prismatic cross-sectional area of width w and thickness t, and L
is the length of an unbent film hinge. Transverse stiffness of this
film hinge is much smaller than the rigidity of the leading-edge
spar.
When dislodged from a motorized transmission, a hinged wing
pair is free to oscillate. The natural frequency of this hinged wing
is estimated to be
rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 k
fr ¼
2p 2  J0
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 8:53  103 N m=rad
¼ ¼ 5:9 Hz (7)
2p 2  3:093  106 kg m2
When mounted on a crank-rocker mechanism, the hinged wing is
not free to oscillate; it can only follow the rocker motion under
harmonic drive by the motorized transmission. Though this
constrained resonant drive may not magnify the wing-stroke
amplitude, it helps reduce the load-torque requirement according
to Eq. (2).
3.3 Transmission Design. A brushless motor can directly
drive a propeller for rotary flight; but its torque generation is not
enough to for direct drive of flapping wings, which are larger than
a propeller. To solve this problem, a transmission mechanism can
magnify the output torque for indirect drive of flapping wings.
Here, we designed a transmission consisting of a two-stage com-
pound gear train and a crank-rocker mechanism (see Figs. 2(g)
and 2(h)). In this assembly of transmission, gears were slotted into
and turn about pins fixed to the gearbox housing, while each wing
base reciprocates about a film hinge following the rocker motion.
Toggling of the crank-rocker mechanism does not encounter any
singularity due to film-hinge flexibility.
A two-stage compound gear train was used to provide the pri-
mary speed reduction. It consists of two single stages in series.
Components of the gear train are a 9-tooth pinion on an input
shaft, a compound gear which has a 24-tooth gear and an 8-tooth
gear fixed on the same shaft, and finally, a 32-tooth gear on the
output shaft. The first stage has the input pinion driving the 24-
tooth gear of the compound gear. In the second stage, the eight
tooth gear of the compound gear drives the output gear. This gear
train has a total gear ratio of
  
24 32
G:R: ¼ ¼ 10:67 (8)
9 8
This reduces the wing beat frequency to be 1/G.R. of the rate of
motor revolution.
The double crank-rocker mechanism was used to convert a
rotary motion into a rocking motion [1,11,49]. Its effect on torque
magnification is, however, often neglected. Upon a half turn by
the output gear, the rocker reciprocates the wing for a 2U ¼ 40 deg
stroke angle in a half wingbeat cycle (i.e., either opening or
Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics
closing). Based on the principle of virtual work [50], a crank-
rocker angular ratio for torque magnification is
p p
C:R: ¼ ¼ ¼ 4:5 (9)
2U 40
p
180
Let us consider the use of a 3.1 g brushless motor (AP-03
7000kv). A reference torque-speed curve for this motor at a rated
voltage of 4 V is marked by a stall torque of 2.8 m N m and a no-
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load speed of 28,000 rpm [51]. Due to C.R.  G.R. ¼ 48 times
magnification, the maximum output torque of the rocker is
(6) 134.4 mN m. Meanwhile, the no-load rocking frequency was esti-
mated to be 43.7 Hz based on G.R. ¼ 10.67.
While supporting four X wings, two film hinges present a maxi-
mum static elastic load of
Qelastic ¼ 2k  2hy
¼ 2  8:53  103  2  0:47 rad ¼ 16:0 m N m (10)
to stall a driving motor. With the speed reduction as described ear-
lier, the apparent elastic load is small relative to the motor’s stall
torque. However, the elastic load adds to the normal loads
between gears, and thus, unavoidably increases to the friction
load. Our initial tests show that this motor (AP-03 7000kv) cannot
start a 30 mm wide film hinged transmission with four flapping
wings.
3.4 Test Procedures and Experimental Setup. First, we
measured the static deformation of a film hinge by applying incre-
ments of deadweight at the quarter span of the leading edge spar,
which was supported by the hinge. During this test, the hinged
wing was dislodged from the crank-rocker mechanism, while the
anchor of the hinge was clamped together with the gearbox hous-
ing. A digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera (Canon) was used
to record the static deformation. Bending angle h of the film hinge
was measured between a leading-edge spar and a vertical refer-
ence of the hinge anchor. The applied moment is calculated as the
product of applied weight and moment arm.
Second, we measured the transient recoil of a pair of hinged
wings. A high speed camera (Photron FASTCAM 1024) was used
to record high-speed footage of dynamic wing motion. The frame
rate of the high-speed footage was set to be 2000 frames per sec-
ond, while each frame had 512  512 pixels. To assist motion
tracking, the leading-edge spar of flapping wing was marked with
two white dots. The stroke angle was measured between the incli-
nation of leading-edge spar and a horizontal reference toward
which wings close. Pitch angle of wing rotation is calculated from
the arcsine function of relative projected chord length at the quar-
ter span. This measurement setup and steps were also applied to
measure the kinematics of four flapping wings under indirect drive
by a spinning motor.
Third, we measured the static thrust generation by a tethered
wing transmission powered by an external supply. Figure 5 shows
the schematics of the experimental setup for static thrust test and
power measurement. Thrust measurement was done by using a
load cell, either a single axis one (Zemic Q47-20*6-6, 120 g
capacity) or a multi-axis one (ATI Nano 17), and a signal condi-
tioner (Vishay). The device under test is a prototype of a flapping
wing micro air vehicle with a motorized transmission and elastic
storage. A source meter unit (SMU) (Agilent B2902A) was used
to power a brushless motor (AP-03 7000kv) through an electronic
speed controller (ESC) (SuperMicro Systems Brushless ESC, 3A
Mi-3A). Meanwhile, the SMU could simultaneously measure the
driving current that powers the motor. A computer with a data
acquisition card (NI USB6009 DAQ card) was used to log the
power and thrust readings at a rate of 2000 samples per second.
During the static thrust test, the prototype of fwMAV was
mounted on the load cell. While a motorized transmission was
DECEMBER 2018, Vol. 10 / 061014-5

Fig. 5 Experimental setup for static thrust tests, measuring wing kinematics, thrust generation and power expenditure for (a)
flapping X-wings using a single-axis load cell and (b) a spinning propeller (GWS 3020 prop) using a six-axis load cell
powered to flap four wings, a load cell measured the thrust genera-
tion by fwMAV. A transmitter (Spektrum DX6i) was used to
remotely control the driving motor through a receiver (Deltang
DT Receiver Rx43d-3). Steady-state reading during the static
thrust test was logged for at least 8 s after 3–5 s drive of the wing
transmission. This yielded repeatable steady-state readings with
little variation. The recorded signals for power and thrust mea-
surement are presented unfiltered.
The total electrical power supplied for driving this motorized
transmission is
Pelectric ¼ iðtÞVs (11)
where Vs is the SMU output voltage here and i(t) is the driving
current. The electrical power available to drive the motor is less
due to resistive power loss, following
Pmotor ¼ iðtÞVs  i2 ðtÞR (12)
Here, the SMU output voltage was set to be Vs ¼ 4.2 V, while the
total wire resistance was measured to be R ¼ 2.02 X. The driving
current is load dependent; the mean driving current I increased up
to 1.7A toward full throttle of the motor drive.
A brushless motor can be remotely throttled for increasing the
shaft power output. This is done using an electronic speed control-
ler that varies the power pulse width given a constant voltage Vs.
The ESC incurs an extra power loss for switching a DC current
across the motor coil [51].
As a result of electro-mechanical conversion, the shaft power
output by a brushless motor can be estimated as a product of load-
torque Qm and speed x following
Pshaft ¼ Qm x ¼ Kt iðtÞx (13)
where the induced motor torque Qm ¼ Kti(t) is proportional to the
driving current. The motor torque constant is calculated as Kt ¼ 60/
(2pKv) from the speed constant Kv as provided by the motor specifi-
cation [52]3. Meanwhile, the motor rotational speed is a multiple of
the measured wing beat frequency f following x ¼ 2po  G.R.,
where G.R. is the gear reduction ratio from Eq. (9).
3
https://hobbyking.com/en_us/hobbyking-ap-03-7000kv-brushless-micro-motor-
3-1g.html
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Electro-mechanical efficiency of this motor is defined as the
ratio of output shaft power to input electrical power
 
Pshaft Kt iðtÞx Kt
gmotor ¼ ¼ ¼ x (14)
Pelectric iðtÞVs Vs
It is proportional to the motor’s spin speed given a constant
motor torque constant (Kt) and a constant source voltage (Vs).
It may, however, taper off in the presence of ESC power loss
[51].
Fourth, we tested the fwMAV prototype for a vertical take-off
along a guiding wire in a setup similar to Ref. [53]. This test
was powered by an onboard lithium polymer battery of 2.30 g.
Voltage output by the lithium polymer battery drops while it
discharges. Output voltage of a fully charged battery is 4.2 V,
whereas the nominal voltage output is 3.7 V. Hence, a fwMAV
powered by onboard lithium polymer battery may produce less
thrust as compared to its ground flight test with a constant volt-
age supply.
4 Results and Discussion
This section presents the results and discussions on hinge prop-
erties, wing kinematics, and propulsion of flapping wings under
indirect drive by a motorized transmission with elastic storage. In
addition, presented is the demonstration of a vertical take-off by
this spring-assisted flapping wing transmission. Finally, static pro-
pulsion by four flapping wings will be compared with that by a
propeller driven by the same motor.
4.1 Hinge Properties. The four hinged wings are closed near
the horizontal plane when they are dislodged from the crank-
rocker mechanism. Figure 6(a) shows a diagonal pair of wings
(i.e., bottom right and top left one) opening to 40 deg upon appli-
cation of a deadweight at a quarter span on the common leading-
edge spar. Figure 6(b) shows the moment required to bend the
hinge for opening the wing pair. Rotational stiffness of a 20 mm
wide hinge (of 1 mm long and 0.127 mm thick) was measured to
be 11.20 m N m/rad, while that of a 10 mm wide hinge is softer at
3.22 m N m/rad.
Recoil of the hinged wing pair occurs when the deadweight was
removed suddenly. Figure 6(c) shows the bottom right wing
Transactions of the ASME
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Fig. 6 Static deformation and recoil of a polyimide film hinge that supports a wing
pair: (a) static deformation under a deadweight, (b) a snapshot of recoil post the dead-
weight release, (c) the applied moments required to bend the film hinge, and (d) tran-
sient of recoil in terms of stroke angle

Fig. 7 Wing kinematics of four wings on a 20 mm wide hinge pair: (a) snapshots showing the wing opening and closing at
13.Hz, (b)–(c) stroke angle and speed as measured from the midchord rib of one of the four wings, and (d)–(e) pitch angle and
speed as measured from the mid-chord rib of one of the four wings

returned to the spring’s unloaded position. Figure 6(d) shows the recoil of the 10 mm-hinged wings is slower, taking double time to
recoil and subsequent damped free-oscillation of the hinged wing overshoot. In short, 20 mm hinged wings are subjected to a higher
pair. The damped natural frequency of this free oscillation was elastic load but a stronger recoil as compared to the 10 mm hinged
measured to be 5.0 Hz for 20 mm-hinged wings. In comparison, a ones.

Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics DECEMBER 2018, Vol. 10 / 061014-7

 Downloaded from https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/mechanismsrobotics/article-pdf/10/6/061014/6376455/jmr_010_06_061014.pdf by National Chiao Tung University user on 25 December 2019
Fig. 8 The effect of hinge stiffness on frequency-dependent wing kinematics: (a)–(b) amplitudes of stroke angle and speed at
approximately 17 Hz, (c)–(d) amplitudes of pitch angle and speed at approximately 17 Hz, (e)–(f) frequency-dependent ampli-
tudes of stroke and stroke speed, and (g)–(h) frequency-dependent amplitudes of pitch and pitch speed

4.2 Wing Kinematics. Figure 7 shows four flexible wings
opening and closing like scissors under reciprocation. The wing
opening (e.g., from a low stroke angle to a high one) takes longer
than the wing closing. This duration asymmetry increases with
increasing wing beat frequency. For example, as shown in
Fig. 7(b), the opening duration is 52% cycle for 13.0 Hz wing
beat; it increases to 63% cycle for 17.09 Hz wing beat. This is due
to the load asymmetry which will be confirmed by power mea-
surement (see Fig. 9(f)).
Figure 8 shows the effect of elastic storage on wing kinemat-
ics. Two levels of elastic storage were tried, one using 10 mm
wide hinges and the other using 20 mm wide hinges. The 20 mm
wide hinged wings were tuned to produce almost the same
dynamic wing stroke angle as the 10 mm wide hinged wings do.
As observed, dynamic stroke amplitude tapers down to 20 deg
with increasing wing beat frequency. Frequency dependence of
wing stroke amplitude indicates the influence of load and free
plays in the transmission. Due to wing reciprocation and inertial
effects, passive wing rotation rose to 30 deg with increasing
wing beat frequency. In general, both the stroke speed and the
pitch speed are proportional to wing beat frequency.

Fig. 9 Effect of elastic storage on lift generation and power expenditure by flapping X wings: (a)–(b) frequency dependence
of mean lift generation, (c) transient of lift generation, (d)–(e) frequency dependence of mean electric power expenditure, and
(f) transient of electric power expenditure

061014-8 / Vol. 10, DECEMBER 2018 Transactions of the ASME


Fig. 10 Power components incurred by a brushless motor for driving a trans-
mission with 20 mm wide hinged wings: (a) frequency dependence and (b) tran-
sient powers incurred for beating wings at 17.0 Hz for two cycles
The elastic load and recoil were found to change the full-
throttle wing beat frequency under indirect drive by the motor.
For example, full-throttle wing beat frequency achieved by the
20 mm hinged wings is slightly lower than that achieved by the
10 mm hinged ones. Interestingly, more the forceful recoil of
the 20 mm wide hinges apparently increases the pitch speed of
flapping wings. For example, the peak pitch speed of 20 mm
hinged wings is up to 90 rad/s at 17 Hz, while that of 10 mm
hinged wings is up to 80 rad/s at above 20 Hz.
Figures 8(e) and 8(i) show that increased elastic load leads to
more obvious duration asymmetry between wing opening and
closing. For example, the 10 mm wide hinged wings take 0.56
cycle at 17 Hz for wing opening, whereas the 20 mm wide hinged
wings take 0.63 cycle. This is similar to the effect of increased
aerodynamic load (by faster wing beat) as seen in Figs. 7(b) and
7(d). This cross examination suggests that the elastic storage in
flapping-wing apparatus could act analogously to a gear, reducing
speed, and increasing torque magnification. In this way, elastic
storage helps indirect drive of flapping wings generate a higher
thrust at a lower wing beat frequency.
4.3 Lift Generation and Power Expenditure. Figure 9
shows the influence of hinge stiffness on the drive of four flapping
wings for thrust generation. As a motor indirectly drives four
hinged wings beating faster, it consumes more electrical power to
generate higher thrust. As described earlier, elastic storage
presents asymmetric elastic load to the driving motor; it slows
down the wing opening but accelerates the wing closing. As
expected, a higher power is required to drive the wings opened
but a lower power is required to drive the wings closed. Interest-
ingly, this load asymmetry does not raise the mean driving power
requirement and the spring recoil indeed helps enhance thrust
generation by flapping wings.
Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics
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Figures 9(c) and 9(f) show the transients of thrust generated and
power consumed, while four wings on 20 mm wide hinges beat at
17.0 Hz. Then, the four wings can generate an 18.8 g mean thrust
when beating at approximately 17.34 Hz under a 4.17 W mean
driving power. Figure 9(b) shows that the full-throttle drive of
these flapping wings can generate a maximum mean thrust of
21.2 g and consumes 5.8 W of electrical power. Then, the thrust
per unit electrical power decreases from 4.5 g/W to a 3.7 g/W as
the thrust generation increases from 18.8 g to 21.2 g.
Figure 10 shows the frequency dependence and transients of
power components incurred by a motor for driving a transmission
with 20 mm wide hinged wings. The mean shaft power is found to
be only a fraction (not more than 60%) of the total electrical
power. As thrust generation increases, resistive power loss can be
more than the mean shaft power output. Figure 10(b) shows that
the power components incurred for two cycles of wing beats. The
power transient shows that wing opening requires more shaft
power than wing closing. This power variation indicates the load
variation within a wing beat cycle.
To show the effect of elastic storage, Figs. 9(c) and 9(f) also
compare the performance of a four-winged 10 mm wide hinged
mechanism with that of the 20 mm wide hinged one. It is noted
that the 10 mm wide hinged unit produces less thrust but con-
sume more power under the same indirect drive by the motor.
For example, the 17 Hz beating of the 10 mm wide hinged wings
produced merely a 15.2 g mean thrust at a higher driving mean
power of 4.2 W. The maximum thrust generation by 23 Hz flap-
ping increased to 18.3 g and consumed 6.23 W of electric
power. While the thrust generation increased from 15.2 g to
18.3 g, the electric-power specific thrust generation decreases
from 3.6 g/W to 2.9 g/W. Toward full throttle, this wing trans-
mission with soft hinges was observed to undergo gear slippage
as plastic gears warped.
DECEMBER 2018, Vol. 10 / 061014-9
 motor throttle). A supplementary video (Movie S1, which is avail-
able under the “Supplemental Data” tab for this paper on the
ASME Digital Collection) shows a slow take-off by the prototype,
climbing at 200 mm height for 7.96 s. Free hovering will be possi-
ble in future with the addition of tail and servos.

4.5 Benchmark With Propellers. Here, we compared the

performance of two kinds of motorized propulsion for micro air
vehicles. The propulsion was based on either (1) four flapping
wings of 240 mm span or (2) propellers. Two propeller designs

Fig. 11 Take-off of an 13.4 g MAV prototype with flapping X
wings (on 20 mm film hinges), along a guided wire. See supple-
mental Movie S1 which is available under the “Supplemental
Data” tab for this paper on the ASME Digital Collection.
4.4 Vertical Take-Off. Figure 11 shows a vertical take-off
by a 13.4 g prototype with a flapping X wing carrying an onboard
battery. This prototype under test was equipped with four flexible
wings on the support of a pair of 20 mm wide polyimide film
hinges as described. This take-off was along a guided wire. Given
the limited range for video shooting, the ascent was flown slowly
by wing flapping frequency of not more than 15 Hz (at a moderate
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tested are (1) GWS Prop 3200 (of 82 mm diameter and 1.49 g
weight) and (2) Prop 7035 (of 177.8 mm diameter and 2.97 g
weight). The same brushless motor (AP-03 7000kv) was used to
drive these propulsion systems. Torque generation by the motor
is enough for direct drive of the propellers. According to the
motor manufacturer, the GWS Prop 3200 is the recommended
propeller for best performance under direct drive by the motor.
Oversize propeller, Prop7035, was tested here to illustrate the
size effect.
Direct drive of four large flapping wings was beyond the motor
capacity. Instead, a spring-assisted transmission with 48 times tor-
que magnification and 10.67 times speed reduction was used for
indirect drive of wings. Elastic storage was added to the motorized
transmission in the form of either 20 mm wide hinges or 10 mm
wide hinges. With the help of this transmission, the motor sees a
much lower apparent load from the flapping wings, and thus, can
spin faster to a higher maximum full-throttle speed. As the
electro-mechanical conversion efficiency is proportional to motor
speed at a constant voltage (at Vs ¼ 4.2 V), this indirect drive of
flapping wings can be electromechanically more efficient than
direct drive of propellers as shown in Fig. 12(b).
Figure 12(c) shows that thrust generation by these motorized
propulsion systems is proportional to the driving power.

Fig. 12 Benchmark of motorized propulsion systems for micro air vehicles: (a) flapping X wings on 20 mm elastic hinges ver-
sus propellers, e.g., Prop 3020 and Prop 7035, (c) electromechanical conversion efficiency of a brushless motor (AP-03
7000kv) for either indirect drive of flapping X wings or direct drive of propellers, (c) lift or thrust generation as a function of
mean electrical power input, (d) frequency dependence of electric-power specific thrust generation, (e) lift or thrust generation
as a function of mean shaft power, and (f) frequency dependence of shaft-power specific thrust generation

061014-10 / Vol. 10, DECEMBER 2018 Transactions of the ASME

Interestingly, given the same driving power, indirect drive of
20 mm wide hinged flapping wings can produce almost as much
thrust as the direct drive of the recommended propeller, i.e., GWS
3020. This is attributed to the use of spring-assisted transmission
that reduces the apparent load of flapping wings. However, the
maximum thrust generated by four flapping wings is still 20%
lower than that generated by the recommended propeller, possibly
due to increasing frictional load and power loss toward full
throttle.
Figure 12(d) shows that there is an optimum wing beat fre-
quency to maximize the electric-power specific thrust generation
to 4.6 g/W by flapping wings. This is attributed to the combined
effect of decreasing aerodynamic efficiency and increasing elec-
tromechanical efficiency with increasing wing beat frequency.
Toward full throttle of the indirect drive, the electric-power spe-
cific thrust generated by the flapping wings decreases down to
3.6 g/W, while that generated by the recommended propeller
remain high above 4.0 g/W.
In comparison, the oversized propeller produced less thrust than
the recommended propeller given the same electric driving power.
This is against the notion that a bigger propeller of lower disk load-
ing is aerodynamically more efficient than a smaller one of higher
disk loading [1,54,55]. A relook into Fig. 12(b) shows that the dif-
ference is due to the lower electromechanical efficiency for direct
drive of an oversized propeller, which exerts higher load and spins
slower. Figure 12(e) shows a replot of thrust generation as a func-
tion of mechanical shaft power, instead of that as a function of elec-
tric power. This confirms that a bigger propeller can achieve a
higher aerodynamic efficiency but it overloads the driving motor,
and thus, becomes limited in the maximum thrust generation.
Figure 12(f) shows the trends of decreasing shaft-power specific
thrust with increasing drive frequency, among these propulsion
systems. Shaft-power-specific thrust generated by spring-assisted
wing transmission ranges between 6.6 and 9.8 g/W. It is compara-
ble to the values reported by DelFly [11] and Nano hummingbirds
[5] for the same range of thrust generation.
5 Conclusion
In this study, we developed a spring-assisted transmission for
indirect drive of four flapping wings using a brushless motor. The
springs for elastic elastic storage were in the form of film hinges;
their stiffness was adjusted to recover parts of the kinetic energy
stored in flapping wings while not overloading the driving motor.
Interestingly, this transmission with partial elastic storage can still
reduce the apparent load by flapping wings, while the spring recoil
accelerates the closing of wings. As such, for indirect drive of four
flapping wings, this motor can spin up to a higher maximum speed,
and hence, achieve a higher electromechanical conversion rate. An
optimum wing beat frequency was observed to maximize the
electric-power-specific thrust generation under the combined influ-
ences of electromechanical conversion rate and aerodynamic effi-
ciency. This study showed that indirect drive of four flapping wings
with partial elastic storage can produce almost as much thrust per
unit of electrical power as direct drive of a recommended propeller
when both drives are powered by the same brushless motor.
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful to Mr. Bart D. Remes, Dr. Matej Karasek,
and Dr. G.C.H.E. (Guido) de Croon of Delft University of Technol-
ogy for their useful comments on the design of clapping X-wings.
Y.-W. C. acknowledges Nanyang Technological University for pro-
viding a Nanyang Research Scholarship. Financial support came
from Temasek Laboratories at National University of Singapore.
Funding Data
 Temasek Laboratories at National University of Singapore.
Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics
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Transactions of the ASME