A micro air vehicle (MAV), or micro aerial vehicle, is a class of
miniature UAV
A miniature UAV, small UAV (SUAV), or drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle small enough to be man-portable. Smallest UAVs are called micro air vehicle.
Miniature UAVs range from micro air vehicles (MAVs) that can be carried by an infantryman, t ...
s that has a size restriction and may be autonomous. Modern craft can be as small as 5 centimeters. Development is driven by commercial, research, government, and military purposes; with
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
-sized aircraft reportedly expected in the future. The small craft allows remote observation of hazardous environments inaccessible to ground vehicles. MAVs have been built for hobby purposes, such as aerial robotics contests and
aerial photography
Aerial photography (or airborne imagery) is the taking of photographs from an aircraft or other airborne platforms. When taking motion pictures, it is also known as aerial videography.
Platforms for aerial photography include fixed-wing airc ...
.
Practical implementations
In 2008, the
TU Delft
Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...
University in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
developed the smallest
ornithopter
An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, ...
fitted with a camera, the
DelFly
The DelFlyBradshaw, Nancy L., and David Lentink. "Aerodynamic and structural dynamic identification of a flapping wing micro air vehicle." AIAA conference, Hawaii. 2008.^ de Croon, G.C.H.E.; de Weerdt, E. ; De Wagter, C. ; Remes, B.D.W. ; Ruijsink, ...
Micro, the third version of the DelFly project that started in 2005. This version measures 10 centimeters and weighs 3 grams, slightly larger (and noisier) than the
dragonfly on which it was modeled. The importance of the camera lies in remote control when the DelFly is out of sight. However, this version has not yet been successfully tested outside, although it performs well indoors. Researcher David Lentink of
Wageningen University
Wageningen University & Research (also known as Wageningen UR; abbreviation: WUR) is a public university in Wageningen, Netherlands, specializing in life sciences with a focus on agriculture, technical and engineering subjects. It is a globally ...
, who participated in the development of previous models, DelFly I and DelFly II, says it will take at least half a century to mimic the capabilities of insects, with their low energy consumption and multitude of sensors—not only eyes, but
gyroscopes, wind sensors, and much more. He says fly-size ornithopters should be possible, provided the tail is well designed. Rick Ruijsink of TU Delft cites battery weight as the biggest problem; the
lithium-ion battery
A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery which uses the reversible reduction of lithium ions to store energy. It is the predominant battery type used in portable consumer electronics and electric vehicles. It also s ...
in the DelFly micro, at one gram, constitutes a third of the weight. Luckily, developments in this area are still going very fast, due to the demand in various other commercial fields.
Ruijsink says the purpose of these crafts is to understand insect flight and to provide practical uses, such as flying through cracks in concrete to search for earthquake victims or exploring radioactivity-contaminated buildings. Spy agencies and the military also see potential for such small vehicles as spies and scouts.
Robert Wood at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
developed an even smaller ornithopter, at just 3 centimeters, but this craft is not autonomous in that it gets its power through a wire. The group has achieved controlled hovering flight in 2013 as well as landings on and takeoffs from different overhangs in 2016
(both inside a motion tracking environment).
The
T-Hawk MAV, a
ducted fan
In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or propeller mounted within a cylindrical duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertical takeoff and landing
(VTOL) applicati ...
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wi ...
Micro-
UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controlle ...
, was developed by the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
company
Honeywell
Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...
and entered service in 2007. This MAV is used by the
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
and US Navy Explosive Ordnance Division to search areas for roadside bombs and inspect targets. The device was also deployed at the
Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
The is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The ...
in Japan to provide video and radioactivity readings after the
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March. The magnitude 9.0–9.1 (M) undersea megathrust earthquake had an epicenter in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Oshika Peninsula of the Tōhoku region, and lasted approximately six mi ...
.
In early 2008, Honeywell received
FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
approval to operate its MAV, designated as ''gMAV'' in the national airspace on an experimental basis. The gMAV is the fourth MAV to receive such approval. The Honeywell gMAV uses ducted
thrust
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that sys ...
for lift, allowing it to take off and land vertically and to hover. It is also capable of "high-speed" forward flight, according to the company, but no performance figures have been released. The company also states that the machine is light enough to be carried by a man. It was originally developed as part of a
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
program, and its initial application is expected to be with the police department of
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...
.
In January 2010,
Tamkang University
Tamkang University (TKU; ) is a private university in Tamsui District, New Taipei City, Taiwan. It was founded in 1950 as a junior college of English literature. Today it is a comprehensive university with 11 colleges that serves nearly 25,000 ...
(TKU) in
Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
realized autonomous control of flight altitude of an 8-gram, 20-centimeter wide, flapping-wing MAV. The MEMS (MICRO-ELECTRO-MECHANICAL SYSTEMS) Lab of TKU had been developing MAVs for several years, and in 2007 the Space and Flight Dynamics (SFD) Lab joined the research team for the development of autonomous flight MAVs. Instead of traditional sensors and computational devices, which are too heavy for most MAVs, the SFD combined a stereo-vision system with a ground station to control the flight altitude, making it the first flapping-wing MAV under 10 grams that realized autonomous flight.
![Black Hornet Nano Helicopter UAV](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Black_Hornet_Nano_Helicopter_UAV.jpg)
In 2012, the
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
deployed the sixteen gram
Black Hornet Nano Unmanned Air Vehicle
The Black Hornet Nano is a military micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Prox Dynamics AS of Norway, and in use by the armed forces of Norway, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Poland, ...
to
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
to support infantry operations.
Practical limitations
Although there are currently no true MAVs (i.e., truly micro scaled flyers) in existence,
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
has attempted a program to develop even smaller
Nano Air Vehicles (NAVs) with a wingspan of 7.5 centimeters. However, no NAVs meeting DARPA's original program specification were forthcoming until 2009 when
AeroVironment demonstrated a controlled hovering of DARPA's flapping-wing NAV.
Beyond the difficulties in developing MAVs, few designs adequately address control issues. The MAVs' small size makes teleoperation impractical because a ground station pilot cannot see it beyond 100 meters. An onboard camera allowing the ground pilot to stabilize and navigate the craft was first demonstrated in the Aerovironment Black Widow, but truly micro air vehicles cannot carry onboard transmitters powerful enough to allow for teleoperation. For this reason, some researchers have focused on fully autonomous MAV flight. One such device, which has been designed from its inception as a fully autonomous MAV, is the biologically-inspired
Entomopter originally developed at the
Georgia Institute of Technology under a
DARPA
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
Originally known as the Ad ...
contract by
Robert C. Michelson.
Given that MAVs can be controlled by autonomous means, significant test and evaluation issues continue to exist. Some of the problems that might be encountered in physical vehicles are being approached through simulations of these models.
Bio-inspiration
A new trend in the MAV community is to take inspiration from flying insects or birds to achieve unprecedented flight capabilities. Biological systems are not only interesting to MAV engineers for their use of unsteady aerodynamics with flapping wings; they are increasingly inspiring engineers for other aspects such as distributed sensing and acting,
sensor fusion
Sensor fusion is the process of combining sensor data or data derived from disparate sources such that the resulting information has less uncertainty than would be possible when these sources were used individually. For instance, one could potentia ...
and information processing. Recent research within the
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
has focused on development of bird like perching mechanism. A ground mobility and perching mechanism inspired from bird claws was recently developed by Vishwa Robotics and
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
and sponsored by US
Air Force Research Laboratory
The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is a scientific research organization operated by the United States Air Force Materiel Command dedicated to leading the discovery, development, and integration of aerospace warfighting technologies, pl ...
Various symposia bringing together biologists and aerial roboticists have been held with increasing frequency since 2000 and some books have recently been published on this topic. Bio-inspiration has been also used in design of methods for stabilization and control of systems of multiple MAVs. Researchers took inspiration from observed behaviors of schools of fish and flocks of birds to control artificial swarms of MAVs and from rules observed in groups of migratory birds to stabilize compact MAV formations.
[No, T.S.; Kim, Y.; Tahk, M.J.; Jeon, G.E. (2011)]
Cascade-type guidance law design for multiple-uav formation keeping
Aerospace Science and Technology, 15(6), 431 – 439.
See also
*
AeroVironment Nano Hummingbird
*
Entomopter
*
DelFly
The DelFlyBradshaw, Nancy L., and David Lentink. "Aerodynamic and structural dynamic identification of a flapping wing micro air vehicle." AIAA conference, Hawaii. 2008.^ de Croon, G.C.H.E.; de Weerdt, E. ; De Wagter, C. ; Remes, B.D.W. ; Ruijsink, ...
*
History of unmanned aerial vehicles
UAVs include both autonomous (capable of operating without human input) drones and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs). A UAV is capable of controlled, sustained level flight and is powered by a jet, reciprocating, or electric engine. In the twenty ...
*
Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems
*
Miniature helicopter
*
Miniature UAV
A miniature UAV, small UAV (SUAV), or drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle small enough to be man-portable. Smallest UAVs are called micro air vehicle.
Miniature UAVs range from micro air vehicles (MAVs) that can be carried by an infantryman, t ...
s
*
Model aircraft
A model aircraft is a small unmanned aircraft. Many are replicas of real aircraft. Model aircraft are divided into two basic groups: flying and non-flying. Non-flying models are also termed static, display, or shelf models.
Aircraft manufactur ...
*
Surveillance
*
Unmanned aerial vehicle
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controll ...
(UAV)
*
Honeywell RQ-16 T-Hawk
References
Further reading
* {{cite book
, year = 2002
, title = Fixed and Flapping Wing Aerodynamics for Micro Air Vehicle Applications
, editor = Thomas J. Mueller
, publisher =
AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of t ...
, isbn = 978-1-56347-517-7
, url = https://books.google.com/books?id=q6oX4o8jSuAC
* Peter Forbes, ''The Gecko's Foot: How Scientists are Taking a Leaf from Nature's Book'', Harper Perennial, 2006, pp. 161–179.
* Guo et al., ''An Autonomously Hopping-off Micro Raised-flapping-wing Air Vehicle'', published in the 31st Chinese Control Conference, 2012.
External links
Delfly.nl DelFly Micro photographs
Emerging technologies