eprintid: 10188354 rev_number: 13 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/18/83/54 datestamp: 2024-03-04 12:01:27 lastmod: 2024-04-10 19:26:44 status_changed: 2024-03-04 12:01:27 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Park, Moonsoon creators_name: Abolfathi, Ali title: Direct drive or slider-crank? Comparing motor-actuated flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles ispublished: inpress divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C05 divisions: F45 note: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. abstract: For flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles, the common approach to converting the rotational motion of a DC motor to the reciprocal flapping motion is using a slider-crank mechanism. However, frictional losses in sliders and rotational joints can hinder the performance of such a system. An alternative is a direct drive system where the wings are directly connected to a DC motor which has been driven by an AC signal. These two approaches are compared in this paper, to evaluate their performances and assess which one provides a better solution for flapping wing micro drones. The electromechanical model of the two systems is used in this paper to compare their performances. System parameters for both types of drones were derived through a multi-variable optimisation process using the same DC motor. The comparisons are made in terms of input power requirement, aerodynamic power, system efficiency and lift. The direct drive model can generate about 16 % higher average lift at 5 V with 50 % lower input electrical power. It has 29 % larger aerodynamic power and the system efficiency is 16.0 % higher than that of the slider-crank model. date: 2024 date_type: published publisher: Canadian Science Publishing official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/dsa-2023-0026 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2253586 doi: 10.1139/dsa-2023-0026 lyricists_name: Abolfathi, Ali lyricists_id: AABOL52 actors_name: Abolfathi, Ali actors_id: AABOL52 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Drone Systems and Applications issn: 2564-4939 citation: Park, Moonsoon; Abolfathi, Ali; (2024) Direct drive or slider-crank? Comparing motor-actuated flapping-wing micro aerial vehicles. Drone Systems and Applications 10.1139/dsa-2023-0026 <https://doi.org/10.1139/dsa-2023-0026>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10188354/1/2024-direct-drive-or-slider-crank-comparing-motor-actuated-flapping-wing-micro-aerial-vehicles.pdf