What is the main difference between the MAV you are pursuing and a fixed-wing airplane?
For a fixed-wing aircraft, the eddy (the airflow moving counter to the main airflow) is small compared to the airplane itself. There is significant interaction in the dragonfly MAV, (so) you have to look at the whole body in designing the aerodynamics. You cannot look at one section of it because they all interact with each other. Because of the eddy, the flow is disturbed by the body itself. That’s probably the most significant difference. With a MAV, you cannot only look at the wing or a simplified form because any part is going to be important. That makes the design significantly more difficult. What is the biggest challenge you are investigating? We can fly this airplane about 15 minutes, continuously. Remember that 15 minutes means this Micro Air Vehicle just continues flapping. In reality, insects don’t really flap all the time. If you look at butterflies, they fly from Canada to Mexico. If they keep flapping, they will run out of energy in just one or two miles. The way they do
