Design and Testing of Bio-inspired Flexible Skin Variable Sweep and Flip Wing

Fixed-wing aircraft cannot accommodate different flight conditions. Numerous studies have demonstrated the potential of Bio-inspired morphing wings as a viable solution to tackle this issue. In this paper, a Bio-inspired Flexible Skin Variable Sweep and Flip wing is proposed through the analysis of the deformation and structural forms of seagulls and albatrosses. The bio-inspired morphing wing consists of mechanisms, composite skins, and actuators, which can achieve a sweep angle of 20-70 degrees, a wingtip flip of ± 20 degrees, and a wing area change of $31.4 %$. The aerodynamic performance and deformation capability of the wing at multiple sweep angles were analyzed. Finally, a prototype was developed, and effectiveness of the design were verified through deformation capability test.