Tried-and-true flapping wing robot simulation is essential in developing flapping wing mechanisms and algorithms. This paper presents a novel application-oriented flapping wing platform, highly compatible with various mechanical designs and adaptable to different robotic tasks. First, the blade element theory and the quasi-steady model are put forward to compute the flapping wing aerodynamics based on wing kinematics. Translational lift, translational drag, rotational lift, and added mass force are all considered in the computation. Then we use the proposed simulation platform to investigate the passive wing rotation and the wing-tail interaction phenomena of a particular flapping-wing robot. With the help of the simulation tool and a novel statistic based on dynamic differences from the averaged system, several behaviors display their essence by investigating the flapping wing robot dynamic characteristics. After that, the attitude tracking control problem and the positional trajectory tracking problem are both overcome by robust control techniques. Further comparison simulations reveal that the proposed control algorithms compared with other existing ones show apparent superiority. What is more, with the same control algorithm and parameters tuned in simulation, we conduct real flight experiments on a self-made flapping wing robot, and obtain similar results from the proposed simulation platform. In contrast to existing simulation tools, the proposed one is compatible with most existing flapping wing robots, and can inherently drill into each subtle behavior in corresponding applications by observing aerodynamic forces and torques on each blade element.

翻译：经过验证的扑翼机器人仿真技术对于开发扑翼机构及算法至关重要。本文提出了一种面向应用的新型扑翼仿真平台,该平台具有良好的机械设计兼容性,可适应多种机器人任务。首先,基于叶片单元理论与准稳态模型,通过翼面运动学计算扑翼空气动力学,综合考虑平移升力、平移阻力、旋转升力及附加质量力。随后利用所提仿真平台研究特定扑翼机器人的被动翼旋转与翼尾相互作用现象。借助该仿真工具及基于平均系统动力学差异的新型统计方法,通过分析扑翼机器人动力学特性揭示了多种行为的本质。进而采用鲁棒控制技术解决了姿态跟踪控制与位置轨迹跟踪问题。对比仿真表明,所提控制算法相较于现有方法具有显著优势。此外,采用仿真中调试的相同控制算法与参数,在自制扑翼机器人上开展实际飞行实验,得到了与所提仿真平台一致的结果。相较于现有仿真工具,本平台兼容多数现有扑翼机器人,并可通过观察各叶片单元上的气动力与力矩,深入解析对应应用中每个细微行为。