These last two decades, together with the advent of micro-technologies, Micro-Air Vehicles (MAVs) have gained considerable interest in both civilian and military contexts. To date, MAVs can be classified in three categories depending on their lifting properties: fixed-wing, rotating-wing and flapping-wing MAVs. Fixed-wing MAVs have relatively high endurance and can operate at relatively high flight speed. These MAVs are best suited to long-time / long-range missions. Rotating- and flapping-wing MAVs have limited endurance and flight speed but have the ability to perform hovering and low speed flight, which makes them suited to missions in confined environment. The flapping-wing concept, which is a bio-inspired concept, is still very prospective. Several researches suggest that it could outperform the well-proven rotating-wing concept (in terms of aerodynamic efficiency) for Nano-Air Vehicles (NAVs), with Reynolds numbers of the order 102-103, but have failed to show high aerodynamic performance for MAVs with Reynolds numbers of the order 104-10 (Ref. 1). The rotating-wing concept thus appears as the most appropriate solution for missions of observation in confined environments.
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