Engineered Biomimicry: Chapter 5. Bioinspired and Biomimetic Microflyers

This chapter describes recent developments in the area of manmade microflyers. The design space for microflyers is described, along with fundamental physical limits to miniaturizing mechanisms, energy storage, and electronics. Aspects of aerodynamics at the scale of microflyers are discussed. Microflyer concepts developed by a number of researchers are described in detail. Because the focus is on bioinspiration and biomimetics, scaled-down versions of conventional aircraft, such as fixed-wing micro air vehicles and micro-helicopters, are not addressed. Modeling of the aeromechanics of flapping wing microflyers is described with an illustrative example. Finally, some of the sensing mechanisms used by natural flyers are discussed.