Design and demonstration of a biomimetic wing section using a lightweight piezo-composite actuator (LIPCA)

This paper describes the design and evaluation of biomimetic wing sections, where the trailing edges of the wing sections are actuated by the piezoceramic actuator LIPCA (lightweight piezo-composite actuator). Thermal analogy based on linear elasticity was used for the design and analysis of the wing sections. In the actuation test of the wing sections, the effective deflection angle of the trailing edge was approximately five degrees at 300 V input. The predicted and measured actuation displacements agreed very well up to an input of 150 V. However, the real actuation displacement became larger than the estimated value for higher input voltages due to the material non-linearity of the lead zirconate titanate (PZT) wafer in the LIPCA. The biomimetic wing sections can be used for control surfaces of small scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).