Meeting Abstract
Insect pollinators frequently experience inadvertent wing collisions with vegetation during foraging flights, which can cause cumulative and irreversible wing damage over time. Recent work has shown that some insects have evolved wing morphologies that help reduce damage associated with repeated wing collisions. Wasp wings feature a flexible resilin joint called a “costal break”, located distally along the leading edge of the wing, which allows the wing tip to collapse reversibly when it hits an obstacle. A collapsible wing joint may benefit flight performance in yet another important way during collisions, by reducing extreme and unpredictable destabilizing torques on the body. We designed an artificial flexure hinge for the wing of an insect-scale microrobot, inspired by the costal break in wasp wings, and measured airframe body dynamics associated with collisions of the wing tip. We found that a bio-inspired collapsible wing hinge can dampen collision-induced body torques, but that the effect is correlated with wing stroke phase. Our results suggest that flexible wing tips may facilitate flight control in microrobots and insects alike.
