Dynamic flight stability of hovering droneflies with unilateral wing damage

Insects with damaged wings can still maintain flight and perform complex maneuvers, highlighting their remarkable flight adaptability. Compared with the study on intact insects’ flight stability, research on the flight stability of wing-damaged insects remains limited. Building on our previous measured data on wing kinematics of wing-damaged droneflies (Eristalis tenax), this work further investigates the impact of unilateral wing damage on insect flight stability. Mainly addressing two key questions: (1) whether the longitudinal and lateral stability of insects with asymmetric wing motion can still be analyzed using decoupled methods; (2) how wing damage affects the flight stability characteristics. Results show that decoupled stability analysis remains valid for insects with unilateral wing damage. Moreover, their longitudinal and lateral stability modes show little change compared to those of the intact ones. This work not only contributes to a deeper understanding of the flight compensation strategies of wing-damaged insects but also provides new theoretical insights into the adaptive mechanisms in designing flapping wing micro-air vehicles (FWMAVS).