The "bionic butterfly" project aims to explore the design and development of a robotic bionic butterfly that mimics the flight capabilities of its natural counterpart. By combining principles of biomimicry and aerodynamics, this project seeks to create a bionic butterfly that can achieve agile flight maneuvers.

1.     Study and analyze the flight mechanics of real bionic butterflies: Conduct research on the aerodynamics, wing morphology, and kinematics of actual bionic butterflies to understand the underlying principles behind their flight abilities.

2.      Design and fabrication of the bionic butterfly: Develop a robotic bionic butterfly prototype with wings that closely resemble those of real bionic butterflies, ensuring flexible wing movements, and appropriate actuation mechanisms.

3.      Biomimetic flight control: Implement control algorithms that replicate the intricate flight patterns observed in bionic butterflies, enabling the bionic butterfly to perform various maneuvers like flapping, gliding, and turning.

4.      Selection of proper material: To ensure lightweight structure, it’s required to carefully select light and flexible material for wings, miniature steering engine and appropriate power-supply system

5.      Satisfying the competition requirement: Improving its flying and turning around capacity in limited dimensions in 2 minutes.

Our butterfly has a very good lightweight design. The weight of our butterflies is controlled within 40g and the production cost of a single butterfly is around 300 yuan under the condition that the steering gear can provide enough flapping frequency.

After theoretical calculations and practical experiments, we have verified that our wings can provide enough lift to balance the gravity, which provides the basic guarantee for the flight of the butterfly, and our butterfly owns high strength. Moreover, after many experiments, the butterfly will not be damaged.

Our current results are that the butterflies released from the second floor can maintain a smooth flight of about five meters, and a total horizontal flight distance of more than 10 meters.