In this paper, an insect flapping onset control method based on electrical stimulation is proposed. The beetle (Allomyrina dithotomus, Coleoptera) is employed for the research carrier, and it's left and right longitudinal muscles are electrically stimulated to control the flapping onset behavior. The control principle of insect flapping onset utilizing electrical stimulation is analyzed firstly followed by the movement function of the dorsal longitudinal muscle. Subsequently, a micro-control system, which is composed of a PC controller, coordinator and electronic backpack, is designed to realize the wireless control of beetle movements. Finally, the verification experiment is implemented to verify the effectiveness of dorsal longitudinal muscle stimulation with respect to the beetle flapping onset, whereas the comparative experiment emphasizes on determining optimal simulating parameters. The experimental results demonstrate that when the period, duty ratio, number of and amplitude of pulses stimulation signal are assigned to 5 ms, 20%, 90 and 3.3 V respectively, the beetle flapping onset can be controlled with an average response time of 1.69 s. Simultaneously, the optimization of duty ratio from 20% to 40%, and the number of pulses from 90 to 100, is proved to the best parameter configuration.
Keywords: dorsal longitudinal muscle; electrical stimulation; flapping onset control; micro-control system.