Objectives
- Understand the agile evasiveness and maneuverability of butterflies
- Understand the endurance of Monarch butterflies, enabling migration over 200 km a day (longest among insects)
- Understand the effects of high-altitude environment on the Monarch butterfly flight (spotted at 10,000 feet)
- Model and analyze the coupling between unsteady aerodynamics, anisotropic flexible wings, fore/hindwing combination, and body undulation of butterfly flight
Approach - Multi-fidelity Analysis
| Highlights
Achievements
- Established a reliable marker distribution for optimal data capture.
- Developed techniques to extract morphological and structural data.
- Conducted multiple flight tests to assess validity of the model and to quantify experimental uncertainties.
- Obtained preliminary analysis on the role of hind wings and effects of wind gusts
Future Work
- Development of artificial butterfly
- Additional wing kinematics measurements
- Modeling and analysis of the coupled dynamics
- Vacuum chamber tests to simulate high altitude flight
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