DICKSON, WB; DICKINSON, MH; California Institute of Technology; California Institute of Technology: Insect flight simulation

Many insects are capable of sustained controlled flight. A comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying the control of insect flight requires a dynamic model of the system. In this study a dynamic flight simulation of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is developed. In the simulation the fly is represented as an articulated rigid body whose dynamics are governed by Newton’s Laws of motion. The unsteady fluid dynamic forces acting on the flapping wings and body of the fly in response to its self motion are calculated and used to determine the overall time resolved motion of the fly. The utility of a such a dynamic model lies with the fact that it provides a direct relationship between wing kinematics and the motion of the insect thus providing a framework for the evaluation of the mechanisms underlying control of flight. A preliminary validation of the model is performed using a comparison with high speed video sequences.