Phase II Final Report - NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts

Planetary Exploration Using Biomimetics
An Entomopter for Flight on Mars
Figure 4-1 shows how a tuned resonant cavity
can be acoustically excited by a waste gas jet
from the reciprocating chemical muscle (used to
drive the wing flapping of the Entomopter) to
produce an ultrasonic emission (other techniques
physically similar to “dog whistles” can
also achieve ultrasonic acoustic emissions at
scales compatible with the Entomopter and its
reciprocating chemical muscle).
By varying the length of the cavity with a
mechanical linkage to the reciprocating chemical
muscle or Entomopter wing system, the frequency
of the ultrasonic emission can be swept
as a series of Eigen value frequencies approximating
a linear triangle or sinusoidal wave
(depending on the linkage used) as shown in
Figure 4-2 for the terrestrial Entomopter. A similarly
sized system tuned for the speed of sound
in the Mars atmosphere would exhibit similar
behavior.
Figure 4-1: Acoustically Excited
Tuned Resonant Cavity
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Phase II Final Report