A bio-inspired, high-authority actuator for shape morphing structures

Lightweight structures capable of changing their shape on demand are of interest for a number of applications, including aerospace, power generation, and undersea vehicles. This paper describes a bio-inspired cellular metal vertebrate structure which relies on shape memory alloy (SMA) faces to achieve fully reversing shape change. The resulting vertebrate actuators can be combined with flexible face sheets to create a load-bearing, shape morphing panel. Performance of the vertebrate actuator in terms of maximum curvature and moment is analyzed and discussed. A recently constructed, prototype shape morphing airfoil is used to illustrate the concept.