Adaptive structural systems and compliant skin technology of morphing aircraft structures

Morphing aircraft design - the design of aircraft capable of macroscale shape change for drastic in-flight performance variation - is an extremely broad and underdefined field. Two primary means of developing new concepts in morphing exist at Cornell University: design of broad test platforms with generalized motions that can provide future insight into tarcreted ideas. and specifically adapted aircraft and shape change mechanisms attempting to accomplish a particular task, or hybridize two existing aircraft platforms. Working with both schools of thought, Cornell research has developed a number of useful concepts that are currently under independent analysis and experimentation, including three devices capable of drastically modifying wing structure on a testbed aircraft. Additional concerns that have arisen include the desire to implement ornithological concepts such as perching and wingtip control, as well as the necessity for a compliant aerodynamic skin for producing flight-worthy structural mechanisms.