From insects to bio-inspired Micro Flapping Wing Aerial Vehicles Intelligent Flight: A review, design principles, and future prospects

Micro Flapping-wing Aerial Vehicles (MFWAVs) class of micro-robots and small-scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or drones represent a rapidly emerging class of bio-inspired micro-robots designed for agile flight. Despite their potential, achieving stable and efficient flapping-wing flight at miniature scales remains deeply challenging due to strong fluid–structure coupling, low aerodynamic efficiency, severe Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) constraints, and highly nonlinear, time-varying dynamics. This review paper synthesizes the state-of-the-art in MFWAV research by bridging biological inspiration, unsteady aerodynamics, engineering design, dynamic modeling, sensing, guidance, and control into a unified perspective. The paper examines how principles derived from birds and insects translate into engineered wings through scaling laws, compliant structures, and resonant actuation. The paper analyzes key aerodynamic phenomena at low Reynolds numbers, compares rigid, flexible, and morphing wing architectures. MFWAVs simplified and nonlinear modeling approaches for capturing flapping-wing dynamics are reviewed. The work surveys miniature sensing modalities, multi-modal fusion and estimation techniques, bio-inspired and AI-driven control strategies, and power and electronic systems required for onboard autonomy. Key application domains are summarized, and persistent challenges are highlighted, including unsteady aerodynamic modeling, low-signal perception, synchronization, resource-aware autonomy, swarm coordination, communication security, and certification barriers.