Meeting Abstract
In order to survive, flying insects need to maneuver and steer in the air. The importance of agility in changing the flight direction is especially evident amongst aerial predators such as damselflies and dragonflies. Though long known as the masters of aerial maneuverability, there are only a limited number of experiments conducted toward understanding the dynamics of the wing and the body motion in Odonata flight. The majority of the previous studies focused on the flight dynamics of high flapping frequency insects, such as fruit flies. It is not quite clear whether the lessons we learned about the wing and the body dynamics in high flapping frequency flight are applicable to the damselflies and dragonflies. Here, we imaged free flight turn maneuvers of several damselflies and dragonflies. An accurate 3D surface reconstruction technique is then used to extract the wing and the body kinematics. By studying the connection between the motion of the wings and the body of these insects, we discovered that the dynamics of the wings couple with that of the body. In support of our findings we developed a physics-based model of the wing pitching which is used to simulate the interactions of the wings with the surrounding air. We show that the mechanics and kinematics of damselfly and dragonfly wings allow the wing motion to be controlled using minimal active regulation.
