Feathered tail and pygostyle for the flying control of a bio-mimicking eagle bird robot

Abstract

This paper describes the design principles behind the construction of a 4 degree-of-freedom robot bird tail wing that mimics the pygostyle of a 2.4 metre wingspan eagle bird. The tail provides for elevator-pitch and rudder-yaw control as well as a significant degree of lift that supplements the lift from the main wing. To the best knowledge of the authors, the robot tail is the first of its kind and hence no design rules in this precise area exist. Thus, the only alternative to researching and developing design rules was to study eagle flight manoeuvres from YouTube video clips together with drawings from avian anatomy books. Future work concerns experimental work into validating the mechanics and aerodynamics of its design.