The Portwings Project

About The Portwings Project

PortWings is a ERC 2018 Advanced Grant (Ad.G) of 2.8M Euros awarded to Prof. Stefano Stramigioli, which officially started on 1-10-2018 and will last 5 years totally.

Our aim is to decode the Nature of Flapping Flight by port-Hamiltonian System Theory.

We want to go further than ever before, by modelling and understanding the generation of vortices by mechanical deformations of surfaces and volumes of the wings and body of birds and then understand how to control it. After validating the models by wind tunnel tests with flow visualisation, numerical optimisation will be used to fine tune models and search for uncertain parameters. Based on these findings, artefacts will be built to validate the generated models with real systems. Last but not least, based on the insight gained, a new robotic bird will be realised with unprecedented flight dexterity, able to flap asymmetrically, adapt to the flow and take off and land as birds do, in order to validate the scientific understandings.

Keywords

• Port-Hamiltonian System Theory
• Port-Hamiltonian System Theory

Address

• Headquarters

  Hallenweg 157522NH EnschedeOverijssel, Netherlands