Flexible micro flow sensor for micro aerial vehicles
Rong ZHU(), Ruiyi QUE, Peng LIU
State Key Laboratory of Precision Measurement Technology and Instruments, Department of Precision Instrument, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
This article summarizes our studies on micro flow sensors fabricated on a flexible polyimide circuit board by a low-cost hybrid process of thin-film deposition and circuit printing. The micro flow sensor has merits of flexibility, structural simplicity, easy integrability with circuits, and good sensing performance. The sensor, which adheres to an object surface, can detect the surface flow around the object. In our study, we install the fabricated micro flow sensors on micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) to detect the surface flow variation around the aircraft wing and deduce the aerodynamic parameters of the MAVs in flight. Wind tunnel experiments using the sensors integrated with the MAVs are also conducted.
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