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First published online July 20, 2007
Journal of Experimental Biology 210, 2714-2722 (2007)
Published by The Company of Biologists 2007
doi: 10.1242/jeb.004507

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Flight stabilization control of a hovering model insect

Mao Sun^* and Ji Kang Wang

Institute of Fluid Mechanics, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing 100083, People's Republic of China

^* Author for correspondence (e-mail: m.sun{at}263.net)

Accepted 7 May 2007

The longitudinal stabilization control of a hovering model insect was studied using the method of computational fluid dynamics to compute the stability and control derivatives, and the techniques of eigenvalue and eigenvector analysis and modal decomposition, for solving the equations of motion (morphological and certain kinematical data of hoverflies were used for the model insect).

The model insect has the same three natural modes of motion as those reported recently for a hovering bumblebee: one unstable oscillatory mode, one stable fast subsidence mode and one stable slow subsidence mode. Controllability analysis shows that although unstable, the flight is controllable. For stable hovering, the unstable oscillatory mode needs to be stabilized and the slow subsidence mode needs stability augmentation. The former can be accomplished by feeding back pitch attitude, pitch rate and horizontal velocity to produce or ₂; the latter by feeding back vertical velocity to produce or ₁ (, , ₁ and ₂ denote control inputs: and represent changes in stroke amplitude and mean stroke angle, respectively; ₁ represents an equal change whilst ₂ a differential change in the geometrical angles of attack of the downstroke and upstroke).

Key words: insect, hovering, flight controllability, stabilization control, Navier–Stokes simulation, modal analysis

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