Development and Flight Testing of an UAV with a Morphing Wing with Morphing Ailerons

This study presents the design and flight demonstration of an aerobatic RC aircraft equipped with a morphing-wing using a compliant mechanism-based flexible structure. Unlike conventional hinged control surfaces, the proposed morphing wing provides an aerodynamic surface through elastic deformation, which can reduce aerodynamic discontinuities compared to conventional hinged wings. The flexible morphing rib was designed to ensure structural flexibility by combining fishbone and corrugated structures, and four flexible ribs constitute one module, making up four modules of the entire wing. Flight tests were conducted to evaluate the roll maneuverability of the UAV using roll rate and a nondimensional roll performance index. Experimental results showed that the morphing-wing UAV achieved stable and sufficient roll control performance under limited control input conditions, while demonstrating maneuverability comparable to or better than that of a conventional hinged control surface when the aileron deflection angle was limited. These results confirm the feasibility of compliant morphing wings as an alternative to traditional mechanical control surfaces and demonstrate their potential application to future high-efficiency UAV systems.