Lateral Flight Stability of Two Hovering Model Insects

作     者：Na Xu Mao Sun 

作者机构：Ministry-of-Education Key Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics Beihang University Beijing 100191 P. R. China 

出 版 物：《Journal of Bionic Engineering》 (仿生工程学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2014年第11卷第3期

页      面：439-448页

核心收录：

学科分类：08[工学] 0826[工学-兵器科学与技术] 080101[工学-一般力学与力学基础] 0801[工学-力学（可授工学、理学学位）] 

基　　金：Acknowledgment This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11232002)  the Ph.D. Student Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education (30400002011105001) and the 111 Project (B07009) 

主　　题：insect hovering flight dynamic flight stability modal structure 

摘      要：The longitudinal disturbance motion of different insects at hovering flight has the same modal structure. Here, we consider the case of lateral motion. The lateral dynamic flight stability of two model insects, hoverfly and honeybee, at hovering flight is studied. The method of computational fluid dynamics is applied to compute the stability derivatives. The techniques of eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis are used to solve the equations of motion. Results show that the lateral disturbance motion of the hoverfly has three natural modes of motion： an unstable divergence mode, a stable oscillatory mode and a stable subsidence mode, and the flight is unstable; while the honeybee has a different modal structure （a stable slow subsidence mode, a stable fast subsidence mode, and a nearly neutrally stable oscillatory mode） and the flight is nearly neutrally stable. The change in modal structure between the two insects is due to their roll-moment/side-velocity derivative having different sign, and the sign difference is because that the hoverfly has a relatively small, but the honeybee has a relatively large, distance between the wing roots and the center of mass. Thus, unlike the case of longitudinal motion, for lateral motion, some insects have different modal structures and stability properties from others.