NANOFLY

Among the flying species observed in the wild, insects show the most impressive aerial capabilities in terms of hovering or sudden acceleration and their diversity brings multiple solutions to design bio-inspired nano aerial vehicles. To date, the microsystems sector has not been fully utilized for the manufacture of flying objects that mimic insects, and researchers have not yet made prototypes with a fully flexible link structure capable of flying. In addition, although the understanding of insect flight has considerably developed, there remain many issues to be resolved as the exact role of the effects of nonlinear vibration, unsteady aerodynamic and aeroelasticity on wings at low Reynolds and small scales. In the military and the civil fields, the ability to hover associated with a great agility, is an ideal platform for reconnaissance. A team composed of researchers from IEMN and ENSAM has been set up in a previous ANR-ASTRID project named "CLEAR-flight" and has allowed the major advances summarized below: -a technique of microfabrication of the body and wings of a nano aerial vehicle, entirely in polymer material and totally controlled, -a successful integration of electromagnetic microactuators for the reproduction of a kinematics similar to that of insects using a resonant mode combination concept, -the prediction and generation of a reproducible lift force equivalent to the weight of the prototypes, -the design and production of an electronic board for controlling and locating the nano aerial vehicle from standard components, - the demonstration of the hovering ability of a micro aerial flapping wing vehicle operating with electric motors. The main objective of this new project "NANO FLYing vehicle based on vibrating wings control" (NANOFLY) is to achieve hovering for tethered centimeter-sized objects, which involves having a ratio between the lift force and the weight of the current prototype multiplied by three and therefore the amplitude of flapping and rotating of the artificial wings twice larger. The goal is to get closer to the performance of insects capable of generating large amplitudes and lifting their weight several times. First, ENSAM and IEMN will propose solutions based on a controlled combination of artificial wings resonant modes as well as the actuation and structure flexibility optimization to obtain kinematics with large amplitudes. Together with the ESPCI, the wing dynamics model will be improved to introduce in the optimization the aeroelastic coupling. Furthermore a series of flow and force measurement will be developed on the optimized prototypes. In a third part, ENSAM, IEMN and ESPCI will work on the development of an instrumentation and measurement bench for the control of the nano aerial vehicle hovering as well as on the programming of the closed loop control. Some preliminary tests could be performed on the operational micro aerial vehicle prior to the tests on the nano aerial vehicle. The deliverable consists of demonstrating and controlling the movement of the nano aerial vehicle along the vertical axis. The last stage will focus on a scientific and technological survey throughout the project duration with the perspective of having an autonomous nano aerial vehicle capable of carrying out reconnaissance missions. Thus a complete state of the art will be carried out on the solutions proposed in the literature to miniaturize the batteries, the electronic components necessary for navigation, data processing and communication as well as on environmentally sensitive onboard sensors and systems capable of mapping.