Birds produce tail control torques to maintain their attitude by unfolding their tails in the wing induced flow at hover. This mechanism is termed as wing-tail interaction. This study aims to apply this mechanism to the pitch control of a flapping wing aircraft. Momentum theory is adapted to analytically calculate the flapping wing induced flow and its distribution along the body is also presented. The proposed theory is experimentally tested on our self-designed flapping wing aircraft and it holds when the tail is installed within 1.5 c (wing chord) distance from the leading edge at frequency above 10 Hz. The tail of our aircraft is mounted at the experimentally identified maximum tail control torque position to enlarge the control effect. An accurate tail control model of the aircraft is established with the validated theory and it is utilized to design frequency dependent tail controller. The controller can realize good pitch stabilization by including the flapping wing induced flow. The proposed theory can be easily incorporated into the tail controller design of flapping wing aircraft and has promising application potential in the similar tailed aircraft.

This article intends to give a comprehensive model to a brand new micromechanical flapping-wing aircraft inspired by wing–tail interaction. In this aircraft, the flapping-wing induced flow contributes to the tail control torque generation. However, this also makes the wing–tail interaction nonnegligible, and this flow would be disturbed by the relative flow produced by the body motion. The dominant unsteady aerodynamic effects of the flapping wing are considered. The flapping-wing induced flow over the tail is included when analyzing the tail aerodynamics. Especially, the aerodynamic–dynamic coupling effect of both the wing and the tail is considered to account for the force due to the body motion. A nonlinear and time-periodic simulation model of the aircraft is, thus, established. The model is averaged and linearized around hover status. Because of the combination of the wing–tail interaction with the aerodynamic–dynamic coupling, the state and control matrixes, including both the induced flow effect and the body motion effect, can be obtained. The pitch dynamics are analyzed, and it is found that the tail can push the two unstable oscillatory poles closer to the imaginary axis. The role of the tail is fully demonstrated by considering the induced flow. Cascade controllers are also designed according to the root-locus plot based on the built model. Due to the inclusion of the wing–tail interaction and the aerodynamic–dynamic coupling, the controllers are proved to be efficient in the attitude stabilization during statistic hover, descent, and ascent flights. Our proposed model can be easily applied to the modeling of other flapping-wing aircraft with similar structures, and it makes the controller design process more efficient and targeted.

The kinematics and redundant space analysis of redundant robots constitutes important research content. Currently, methods such as geometric method and iterative optimization method are relatively complicated and inconvenient for programming and practical control applications. Moreover, little research has been conducted on redundant space analysis. This paper takes the 4-DOF PowerCube redundant robot as the research object. The forward and inverse kinematics equation of the robot are established based on the D-H matrix method, projection and cosine theorem method, and vector coordinate method. Then, the redundant space of the robot is obtained and the redundant space range of the robot is analyzed. Finally, the simulation of kinematic and redundant space research is conducted. It is shown that the change of each joint angle of the robot is smooth without mutation, so it can ensure the stable motion of the robot. Additionally, the different position and redundant variable have a big influence on robotic configuration. The calculation amount is relatively small and convenient for programming application, and the path calculation data of the joints are obtained, which are conducive to the motion control of modular robots. The method used in this paper can be extended to the multi-DOF redundant robot. Finally, the motion optimization, control, and obstacle-avoidance of redundant robots are briefly studied. The results of this paper provide an important basis for these aspects of research.