Flying insects perform aerial maneuvers through slight manipulations of their wing motions. Because such manipulations in wing kinematics are subtle, a reliable method is needed to properly discern consistent kinematic strategies used by the insect from inconsistent variations and measurement error. Here, we introduce a novel automated method that accurately extracts full, 3D body and wing kinematics from high-resolution films of free-flying insects.

In immersed interface methods, solids in a fluid are represented by singular forces in the Navier-Stokes equations, and flow jump conditions induced by the singular forces directly enter into numerical schemes. This paper focuses on the implementation of an immersed interface method for simulating fluid-solid interaction in 3D. The method employs the MAC scheme for the spatial discretization, the RK4 scheme for the time integration, and an FFT-based Poisson solver for the pressure Poisson equation. A fluid-solid interface is tracked by Lagrangian markers.

To seek the simplest efficient flapping wing motions and understand their relation to steady flight, a two-stroke model in the quasi-steady limit was analyzed. It was found that a family of two-stroke flapping motions have aerodynamic efficiency close to, but slightly lower than, the optimal steady flight. These two-stroke motions share two common features: the downstroke is a gliding motion and the upstroke has an angle of attack close to the optimal of the steady flight of the same wing.

Studies of insect flight have focused on aerodynamic lift, both in quasi-steady and unsteady regimes. This is partly influenced by the choice of hovering motions along a horizontal stroke plane, where aerodynamic drag makes no contribution to the vertical force. In contrast, some of the best hoverers - dragonflies and hoverflies - employ inclined stroke planes, where the drag in the down- and upstrokes does not cancel each other. Here, computation of an idealized dragonfly wing motion shows that a dragonfly uses drag to support about three quarters of its weight.