Inflatable wings are of interest for applications where low weight, compact transport volume, and easy set-up are important. Examples are unmanned aerial vehicles with inflatable wings, paragliders and softkites for sport or airborne wind-energy appl...
The aim of this work is to evaluate the influence of the surface deformations of an open inflatable wing section on aerodynamic performance and boundary layer separation phenomena. The inflation/deflation processes are allowed by an air intake placed...
Flexible inflatable film wings have many functional advantages that traditional fixed rigid wings do not possess, such as foldability, small size, light weight, convenient storage, transportation, and so on. More and more scholars and engineers are p...
In this research, two inflatable-winged Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in distinct configurations, a single-fuselage layout with external trailing-edge control surfaces and a twin-fuselage layout with fully movable control surfaces were designed, de...
An instrumentation system for in-situ measurement of the inner-outer pressure differential at the upper and lower surfaces of dynamically inflatable wings is designed and tested, revealing important insights into the aerodynamic characteristics of in...
Leading-edge inflatable (LEI) kites use a pressurized tubular frame to structurally support a single skin membrane canopy. The presence of the tubes on the pressure side of the wing leads to characteristic flow phenomena for this type of kite. In thi...
This paper presents the technical barriers and an analysis to advance the conceptual development of novel robotic ground-aerial vehicles (RGAVs) for exploration missions to Mars prior to human arrival and the establishment of a base. The concept for...
Airborne wind energy systems using flexible membrane wings have the advantages of a low weight, small packing volume, high mobility and rapid deployability. This paper investigates the aero-structural deformation of a leading edge inflatable kite for...
In many disciplines, professionals are interested in folding patterns for their packing and shape changing capabilities. Many insects have folded wings fitting to their body morphology that can unfold to fly, support their weight and withstand extern...
Similar to parafoils, ram-air kites are flexible membrane wings inflated by the apparent wind and supported by a bridle line system. A major challenge in estimating the performance of these wings using a computer model is the strong coupling between...
The flow structures and surface pressure distributions on corrugated airfoils significantly differed from those on a conventional, smooth airfoil. An unsteady, two-dimensional computational simulation was carried out to investigate the flow behavior...
Soft-wing kites for airborne wind-energy harvesting function as flying tensile membrane structures, each of whose shape depends on the aerodynamic load distribution and vice versa. The strong two-way coupling between shape and loading poses a complex...
Katydids employ acoustic signals to communicate with others of their species and have evolved to generate sounds by coupling the anatomical structures of their forewings. However, some species have evolved to implement an additional resonance mechani...
Several bio-inspired underwater robots have been demonstrated in the last few years that can horizontally swim using different smart actuators. However, very few works have been presented on robots which can swim vertically, have a payload and resemb...
This study is aimed at assessing the feasibility of employing an innovative, smart-material-based control effector for an inflatable wing. A shape memory alloy (SMA) actuator is primarily investigated as a control effector in this work for its advant...
The conceptual design of a hybrid aerial vehicle for the exploration of the upper Venus atmosphere is presented. The vehicle will float like a balloon and harvest solar energy which is stored in batteries. The neutral buoyancy reduces the energy cons...
Kites can be used to harvest wind energy with substantially lower material and environmental footprints and a higher capacity factor than conventional wind turbines. In this paper, we present measurement data from seven individual tow tests with the...
In this work, a data-driven approach for identifying the flight state of a self-sensing wing structure with an embedded multi-functional sensing network is proposed. The flight state is characterized by the structural vibration signals recorded from...
Kites can be used to harvest wind energy at higher altitudes while using only a fraction of the material required for conventional wind turbines. In this work, we present the kite system of Kyushu University and demonstrate how experimental data can...
In psychology, small sample sizes are a frequent challenge—particularly when studying specific expert populations or using complex and cost-intensive methods like human scoring of creative answers—as they reduce statistical power, bias re...