The flight regime of small aerial vehicles fall under low Reynolds number flows where the phenomenon like laminar separation bubble and hysteresis significantly affect the performance of the airfoil. Active flow control is one of the important research areas that have high relevance to small aerial vehicle like UAVs and MAVs [1]in the context of achieving high aerodynamic efficiency. It is a multidisciplinary research area combining sensing, actuation, flow physics and control. Here flow field is manipulated using a time dependent forcing system, typically to leverage a natural instability of the flow. Advantages include the ability to attain a large effect using a small and localized energy input. The rapid progress in the sensor, actuator and embedded hardware technologies has been significantly contributing to the development of different flow control techniques based on Piezo Actuator (PZT), plasma actuator, magnetostrictive, Electro Active Polymer (EAP) etc. Attempts have been made at NAL in the recent times in the development of smart actuators for the flow control using devices using PZTs, EAPs etc. In order to characterize these devices, the flow field and its modifications are being studied using advanced flow diagnostics tools like Laser Doppler Velocimetry (LDV) and Particle image Velocimetry (PIV). This paper presents work on the development smart devices for flow control and their effective deployment.
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