Related papers: A mechanical model for diversified insect wing mar…
Insects and birds are often faced by opposing requirements for agile and stable flight. Here, we explore the interplay between aerodynamic effort, maneuverability, and stability in a model system that consists of a $\Lambda$-shaped flyer…
Typical drones with multi rotors are generally less maneuverable due to unidirectional thrust, which may be unfavorable to agile flight in very narrow and confined spaces. This paper suggests a new bio-inspired drone that is empowered with…
Tissue deformations during morphogenesis can be active, driven by internal processes, or passive, resulting from stresses applied at their boundaries. Here, we introduce the Drosophila hindgut primordium as a model for studying…
Many morphogenetic processes involve mechanical rearrangement of epithelial tissues that is driven by precisely regulated cytoskeletal forces and cell adhesion. The mechanical state of the cell and intercellular adhesion are not only the…
Migratory and tissue resident cells exhibit highly branched morphologies to perform their function and to adapt to the microenvironment. Immune cells, for example, display transient branched shapes while exploring the surrounding tissues.…
Experimentally measuring the elastic properties of thin biological surfaces is non-trivial, particularly when they are curved. One technique that may be used is the indentation of a thin sheet of material by a rigid indenter, whilst…
A simplified model of the bird skeleton along with elongation parameters for the flight feathers is used to explore the diversity of bird shapes. Varying a small number of parameters simulates a wide range of observed bird silhouettes. The…
Naturally occurring networks exhibit quantitative features revealing underlying growth mechanisms. Numerous network mechanisms have recently been proposed to reproduce specific properties such as degree distributions or clustering…
Interactions between neighboring cells are essential for generating or refining patterns in a number of biological systems. We propose a discrete filtering approach to predict how networks of cells modulate spatially varying input signals…
The natural wind environment that volant insects encounter is unsteady and highly complex, posing significant flight control and stability challenges. Unsteady airflows can range from structured chains of discrete vortices shed in the wake…
The wings of Lepidoptera contain a matrix of living cells whose function requires appropriate temperatures. However, given their small thermal capacity, wings can overheat rapidly in the sun. Here we analyze butterfly wings across a wide…
Studying shape changing thick surfaces induced by differential growth helps us understand morphogenesis in biology and offers opportunities for device design. While ideal 2D differential growth maps have been well studied for both isotropic…
Insects excel in trajectory and attitude handling during flight, yet the specific kinematic behaviours they use for maintaining stability in air disturbances are not fully understood. This study investigates the adaptive strategies of…
The large active wing deformation is a significant way to generate high aerodynamic forces required in bat flapping flight. Besides the twisting, the elementary morphing models of a bat wing are proposed, such as wing-bending in the…
Saving energy and enhancing performance are secular preoccupations shared by both nature and human beings. In animal locomotion, flapping flyers or swimmers rely on the flexibility of their wings or body to passively increase their…
Dried leaves in nature often exhibit curled and crumpled morphologies, typically attributed to internal strain gradients that produce dome-like shapes. However, the origin of these strain gradients remains poorly understood. Although leaf…
This paper investigates the effects of geometric nonlinearity and structural flexibility on the flight dynamics of high-aspect-ratio wings representative of high-altitude long endurance aircraft configurations. A coupled aeroelastic flight…
Collective cell motions underlie structure formation during embryonic development. Tissues exhibit emergent multicellular characteristics such as jamming, rigidity transitions, and glassy dynamics, but there remain questions about how those…
Motivated by applications to seed germination, we consider the transverse deflection that results from the axisymmetric indentation of an elastic membrane by a rigid body. The elastic membrane is fixed around its boundary, with or without…
Accurately modeling bending energy in morphogenetic simulations is crucial, especially when dealing with anisotropic meshes where remeshing is infeasible due to the biologically meaningful entities of vertex positions (e.g., cells). This…