Modeling of beetle mimicking ornithopter using mixed unscented Kalman filter (UKF) and differential evolution (DE) method

Abstract

Birds and insects are creatures with complex flying capabilities. Trying to emulate their flying technique meets challenges of high degree of difficulties. Birds and insects flap their wings to generate lift and thrust for forward motion as well as for hovering motion. This work involves in modeling the beetle-mimicking ornithopter using mixed Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) and Differential Evolution (DE) method. The research plans to model the beetle mimicking ornithopter aerodynamically and mathematically. An experiment in the IIUM closed loop low speed wind tunnel to determine the aerodynamics coefficients and stability derivatives produced by the beetle mimicking ornithopter is proposed and then the values can be used in the mathematical modeling using mixed UKF and DE algorithm. The data will be inputted into the coding as initial and guessing values. Unfortunately, the work cannot be continued due to the constraints that the wind tunnel has broken down. Therefore, the modeling is halted at the mathematical algorithm and the simulation using MATLAB is not preceded. Flow visualization experiments on the flapping wing are done in the open loop TE54 subsonic wind tunnel to investigate the vortex generation in the ornithopter. The existence of vortices can be seen mostly during both peaks of upstroke cycle and downstroke cycle. The verification of the accuracy of the proposed mixed UKF and DE method is provided in this work. The modeling using the proposed method of mixed UKF and DE proves to be efficient and reliable as the result shows small error differences.