Kinematic Synthesis and Design Optimization of a Mechanism Concept for a Perching MAV

This paper presents a new mechanism concept for a perching micro air vehicle. In this concept, each wing is a three degree-of-freedom serial chain that enables wing pitching, sweeping and folding. The rst two motions are each driven by a servo motor through a four-bar linkage that is kinematically synthesized via the function generation technique. However the folding motion of the outer spar is designed to be a passive joint that is coupled with the sweeping motion through a pulley and cable system. A preliminary design of these mechanisms is obtained by rst applying a kinematic synthesis technique that requires the mechanism passes through a prescribed set of key positions. It is then optimized for two actuation quality measurements: transmission angle and mechanical advantage. At last a working prototype was built and tested with a servo controller. The preliminary results show that the concept can achieve the desired motion. This new concept and prototype facilitates future studies such as ight control for perching MAVs.