Page 103 - Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program Proceedings 2017-18

School of Engineering
Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

The design of flapping-wing micro air vehicles (FMAVs) is greatly inspired by the flexible flapping wings of insects. In this
study, biomimetic flapping wings are fabricated using dragonfly wings as reference. Velocity measurements and force
measurements are used to analyse the performance of the wings. The flapping motion of the artificial wings is being
observed using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) system and high speed cameras. The changes in pitching angle,
phase lag of the pitching angle relative to flapping angle at different flapping frequencies and amplitudes and the
formation and deformation of vortices are studied. The results are compared against that of real dragonflies to identify
the differences and further optimize the aerodynamics performance of the artificial wings.

Supervisor: QIU Huihe / MAE
Student: WONG Ki Wan / MAE Course: UROP1100, Fall

Micro air vehicles (MAVs), conceptually limited to the size within about 15 cm can play vital role to dangerous site
exploration, surveillance and in entertainment. Flapping flight locomotion is considered as best solution for indoor flight
missions. Naturally bio inspired designs mimicking birds and insects are seen to provide solution to the challenge of
building a versatile, robust and efficient MAV. As a prime subject of such concepts, dragonflies are widely studied. Here
we focus on the dynamic shape deformation measurement of dragonfly wings an aspect that is a very important
component of how to achieve superior flight agility by the insect as well as MAVs.

Underwater Robot for Maritime Exploration
Supervisor: SEO Jungwon / MAE
Student: LUO Yijun / MAE Course: UROP1000, Summer

Robots have been improving people’s daily life and been making considerable contributions to scientific research,
especially making the exploration of places, which is difficult or even impossible for human-being to go, possible, the
ocean, whose vastness implies the uncertainty of research work in it, for instance. Hence, the portable maritime robot is
in strong need, with which, the difficulty of marine research can be surmounted. This UROP requires to build an open-
source and modular underwater robot which can autonomously navigate.

Supervisor: SEO Jungwon / MAE
Student: O Kit Long / MAE Course: UROP1100, Fall

The Underwater Robot for Maritime Exploration project initiated by Zhuo Quan IM has been proceed for several
semesters which the underwater robot was constructed and could move in different direction. In this semester, our
team has improved the attitude control. After that, a few swimming pool tests were conducted to test the performance
of the control system. Finally, we were working on constructing more spare robots for accelerating the data collection
process. This report summarizes the new knowledge I have learnt in this UROP1100 course. This includes the application
of PID control, electronics knowledges, software coding and robotics mathematics. It also presents the progress of the
maritime exploration underwater robot project during Fall 2017 semester.

Robotics Gripper Development for Warehouse Automation
Supervisor: WANG Michael Yu / MAE
Student: PANG Cho Hei / MAE Course: UROP1100, Spring
UROP2100, Summer
TANG Can-yao / MAE Course: UROP1100, Spring

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