Flaproo: A Flapping-Wing Robot with Active Twisting and Folding

Flaproo is a flapping-wing robot designed as a controllable stand-in for a bird: unlike a live animal, it repeats the same wingbeat on demand, which makes it possible to isolate the aerodynamics of vortex-wake interaction.

The design adds active wing twisting and folding to a conventional flapping mechanism, so the wing’s shape through the stroke cycle becomes an experimental variable rather than a fixed property of the airframe. Mounted in the wind tunnel alongside the vortex generator used in the Surfing on Vortices experiments, it provides direct force and torque measurements to complement the live-bird data.

The robot was featured by National Geographic.