Biologically Inspired Fixed-Wing Configuration Studies

Through the evolution of natural flight systems, it is expected that many have been optimized to provide enhanced efficiency. With this in mind the current study was conducted to determine whether flight configurations found in nature might be appropriately applied to fixed-wing mechanical flight systems to provide performance improvements through energy savings. Four different biologically inspired wings were designed and experimentally tested against a planar elliptic configuration used as a baseline. Two of the configurations show performance improvements over the baseline, using two different comparison techniques. Surface oil flow visualizations at the wingtips highlight differences that provide insight into the flow physics of the improvements.