(May 22, 2015) Abstract—
In this work, we develop a cooperative launching system for a 13.2 gram
ornithopter micro-aerial vehicle (MAV), the H2Bird, by carrying it on the back
of a 32 gram hexapedal millirobot, the VelociRoACH. We determine the necessary initial
velocity and pitch angle for take off using force data collected in a wind tunnel and use the VelociRoACH to reach these
initial conditions for successful launch. In the wind tunnel predicted success
region, we were able to complete a successful launch for 75 percent of the 12
trials in that region. Although carrying the H2Bird on top of the VelociRoACH
at a stride frequency of 17 Hz increases our average power consumption by about
24.5 percent over solo running, the H2Bird, in turn, provides stability
advantages to the VelociRoACH. We observed that the variance in pitch and roll
velocity with the H2Bird is about 90 percent less than without.
Additionally, with the H2Bird flapping at 5 Hz during transport, we observed an
increase of 12.7 percent of the steady state velocity. Lastly, we found that
the costs of transport for carrying the H2Bird flapping and without (6.6 and
6.8) are lower than the solo costs of transport for the VelociRoACH and for the
H2Bird (8.1 and 10.1).