Related papers: Artificial Tribotactic Microscopic Walkers
The cytoskeleton -- a composite network of biopolymers, molecular motors, and associated binding proteins -- is a paradigmatic example of active matter. Particle transport through the cytoskeleton can range from anomalous and heterogeneous…
The gaits of undulating animals arise from a complex interaction of their central nervous system, muscle, connective tissue, bone, and environment. As a simplifying assumption, many previous studies have often assumed that sufficient…
Cells move differently on substrates with different elasticities. In particular, the persistence time of their motion is higher on stiffer substrates. We show that this behavior will result in a net transport of cells directed up a…
Rectilinear crawling locomotion is a primitive and common mode of locomotion in slender, soft-bodied animals. It requires coordinated contractions that propagate along a body that interacts frictionally with its environment. We propose a…
Collective human movement is a hallmark of complex systems, exhibiting emergent order across diverse settings, from pedestrian flows to biological collectives. In high-speed scenarios, alignment interactions ensure efficient flow and…
Coarse-grained, metallic materials undergo microstructure refinement during tribological loading. This in turn results in changing tribological properties, so understanding deformation under tribological load is mandatory when designing…
We derive a connection between the intrinsic tribological properties and the electronic properties of a solid interface. In particular, we show that the adhesion and frictional forces are dictated by the electronic charge redistribution…
Successfully achieving bipedal locomotion remains challenging due to real-world factors such as model uncertainty, random disturbances, and imperfect state estimation. In this work, we propose a novel metric for locomotive robustness -- the…
Using an adiabatic approximation method, which searches for Tomlinson model-like instabilities for a simple but still realistic model for two crystalline surfaces in the extremely light contact limit, with mobile molecules present at the…
Humans excel at robust bipedal walking in complex natural environments. In each step, they adequately tune the interaction of biomechanical muscle dynamics and neuronal signals to be robust against uncertainties in ground conditions.…
Inchworm crawling allows for both quasistatic and dynamic gaits at a wide range of actuation frequencies. This locomotion mechanism is common in nonskeletal animals and exploited extensively in the bio-inspired field of soft robotics. In…
The friction and adhesion between elastic bodies are strongly influenced by the roughness of the surfaces in contact. Here we develop a multiscale molecular dynamics approach to contact mechanics, which can be used also when the surfaces…
Recent experimental studies have demonstrated that cellular motion can be directed by topographical gradients, such as those resulting from spatial variations in the features of a micropatterned substrate. This phenomenon, known as…
Animals achieve robust locomotion by offloading regulation from the brain to physical couplings within the body. In contrast, locomotion in artificial systems often depends on centralized processors. We introduce a rapid and autonomous…
The goal of this PhD thesis was to characterize the properties of friction in nanotubes and from a more general point of view the understanding of the microscopic origin of friction. Indeed, the relative simplicity of the system allows us…
We study three different experiments that involve dry friction and periodic driving, and which employ both single and many-particle systems. These experimental set-ups, besides providing a playground for investigation of frictional effects,…
Robots are still poor at traversing cluttered large obstacles required for important applications like search and rescue. By contrast, animals are excellent at doing so, often using direct physical interaction with obstacles rather than…
During neurodevelopment, neuronal axons navigate through the extracellular environment, guided by various cues to establish connections with distant target cells. Among other factors, axon trajectories are influenced by heterogeneities in…
Robots often interact with the world via attached parts such as wheels, joints, or appendages. In many systems, these interactions, and the manner in which they lead to locomotion, can be understood using the machinery of geometric…
Routing choices of walking pedestrians in geometrically complex environments are regulated by the interplay of a multitude of factors such as local crowding, (estimated) time to destination, (perceived) comfort. As individual choices…