Design and develop an ornithopter

• Main Author: Wahyu Benardo Fanthony
• Other Authors: Low Kay Soon
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Electronic systems
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/45815
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Flying has been the highest dream of human from long time ago, people did lot of research to be able to fly. Although they are not properly flying, they successfully invented aircraft to carry them across places through air. Common aircrafts adopt different flying style as nature has, they have engine to burst force to be able to move diagonally upward then maintain the position in the air. Animal in other hand has unique style; bird for example is able to flying by flapping the wings. It is very interesting way to perform flight. Ornithopter or flying like aircraft is hot topic to imitate nature; recently many hobbies build their own remote control model to imitate bird. In this project, inspired by nature and the hobbies, I will try to design and develop an ornithopter. The model will used electrical power from battery and perform flapping mechanism from dc motor. The main objective is to be able to perform basic movements such as wing flaps, tail flaps and tail twist. Three basic movements allow the model to do upward movement, frontal movement and side movement respectively. Ornithopter is expected to have better efficiency than normal aircraft. It will generate lessen noise compare to common aircraft. Ornithopter currently is under development for UAV (Unarmed Arial Vehicle) to support defence. It can be functioned as surveillance camera in some conditions where human are unable to do.