Agile perching maneuvers in birds and morphing-wing drones.

ABSTRACT: Avian perching maneuvers are one of the most frequent and agile flight scenarios, where highly optimized flight trajectories, produced by rapid wing and tail morphing that generate high angular rates and accelerations, reduce kinetic energy at impact. While the behavioral, anatomical, and aerodynamic factors involved in these maneuvers are well described, the underlying control strategies are poorly understood. Here, we use optimal control methods on an avian-inspired drone with morphing wing and tail to test a recent hypothesis derived from perching maneuver experiments of Harris' hawks that birds minimize the distance flown at high angles of attack to dissipate kinetic energy before impact. The resulting drone flight trajectories, morphing sequence, and kinetic energy distribution resemb

SUBMITTER: Wuest V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11437188 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature