Meeting Abstract
In order to generate lift and to fine-tune manoeuvres, insects exploit a variety of kinematic parameters during flapping flight, such as adjustments to stroke plane angle, twist, wing beat frequency, and the timing in pronation and supination. To date, there is little flight data available containing information on all of these parameters. We employed high-speed videogrammetry and custom high-fidelity 3D tracking software to extract the kinematic parameters from 363 flight recordings of Drosophila melanogaster, which provides a large kinematic and aerodynamic dataset for modelling insect flight.
We examined asymmetric and symmetric kinematic parameters to determine whether they belonged to specific flight modes. In order to understand how the manoeuvres were performed and controlled from a structural and mechanical perspective, we fitted the data to various kinematic models. We predicted changes in angle of attack with a torsion spring model, changes in wingtip motion using simple harmonic models, and we explored the aerodynamic performance of the manoeuvres by calculating their forces with a quasi-steady blade element model.
