Near-wake Characteristics of a freely flying European Starling

摘要

Flapping flight is one of the widespread and refined locomotionmethods, commonly observed in insects and birds. Years of evolution haveled these animals to feature outstanding performances in respect to flightefficiency, sensing, navigation and maneuvering abilities. Today, engineersmimic nature by developing Micro-Air-Vehicles (MAVs) which can takeadvantage of such unconventional propulsion and lift generation methods,used by flying animals, to enhance performance or supplant traditionalmethods (fixed wings aircraft). However, one of the remaining puzzles isthe role of unsteady motion in the flow due to the wing flapping and itscontribution to the forces acting on the bird during the flapping flight.Hence, this work addresses the near wake features behind a freely flyingbird in time and space and the aerodynamic manifestation due to theunsteady portion of the flow, which results from the flapping wings.