Related papers: Bio-inspired underwater propulsors
Active colloidal microswimmers serve as archetypical active fluid systems, and as models for biological swimmers. Here, by studying in detail their velocity traces, we find robust power-law intermittency with system-dependent exponential…
A Cyber-physical underwater vehicle is equipped with bio-inspired flapping fins positioned on the sides of the vehicle's main body. The proposed control surfaces are inspired by fish pectoral fins, generating forces and moments that can…
Marine exploration is essential to understanding ocean processes and organisms. While the use of current unmanned underwater vehicles has enabled many discoveries, there are still plenty of limitations toward exploring complex environments.…
Flapping-based propulsive systems rely on fluid-structure interactions to produce thrust. At intermediate and high Reynolds numbers, vortex formation and organization in the wake of such systems are crucial for the generation of a…
The ocean vast unexplored regions and diverse soft-bodied marine organisms have spurred interest in bio-inspired underwater soft robotics. Recent advances have enabled new capabilities in underwater movement, sensing, and interaction.…
In this communication we address some hydrodynamic aspects of recently revisited drift mechanism of biogenic mixing in the ocean (Katija and Dabiri, Nature vol. 460, pp. 624-626, 2009). The relevance of the locomotion gait at various…
Many swimmers, especially small to medium-sized animals, use intermittent locomotion that differs from continuous swimming of large species. This type of locomotion, called burst-and-coast, is often associated with an energetic advantage.…
The ability to propel against flows, i.e., to perform positive rheotaxis, can provide exciting opportunities for applications in targeted therapeutics and non-invasive surgery. To date, no biocompatible technologies exist for navigating…
The dynamics of periodic swimming is studied for two models of a deformable sphere, the dipole-quadrupole model and the quadrupole-octupole model. For the two models the solution of the Navier-Stokes equations can be found exactly to second…
Bio-inspired oscillatory foil propulsion has the ability to traverse various propulsive modes by dynamically changing the foil's heave and pitch kinematics. This research characterizes the propulsion properties and wake dynamics of a…
We present force characterizations of two newly developed insect-scale propulsors--one single-tailed and one double-tailed--for microrobotic swimmers that leverage fluid-structure interaction (FSI) to generate thrust. The designs of these…
Biological systems often involve the self-assembly of basic components into complex and function- ing structures. Artificial systems that mimic such processes can provide a well-controlled setting to explore the principles involved and also…
Few simulations exist for microswimmers near deformable interfaces. Here, we present numerical simulations of the hydrodynamic flows associated with a single microswimmer embedded in a binary fluid mixture. The two fluids demix, separated…
Biological and artificial microswimmers often have to propel through a variety of environments, ranging from heterogeneous suspending media to strong geometrical confinement. Under confinement, local flow fields generated by microswimmers,…
This research develops a novel sensor for aquatic robots inspired by the whiskers of harbor seals. This sensor can detect the movement of water, offering valuable data on speed, currents, barriers, and water disturbance. It employs a…
Taking inspiration from the crawling motion of biological cells on a substrate, we consider a physical model of self-propulsion where the spatio-temporal driving can involve both, a mechanical actuation by active force couples, and a…
Bio-inspired underwater vehicles could yield improved efficiency, maneuverability, and environmental compatibility over conventional propeller-driven underwater vehicles. However, to realize the swimming performance of biology, there is a…
Inspired by the classical Kepler and Rutherford problem, we investigate an analogous set-up in the context of active microswimmers: the behavior of a deformable microswimmer in a swirl flow. First we identify new steady bound states in the…
Biological muscles have always attracted robotics researchers due to their efficient capabilities in compliance, force generation, and mechanical work. Many groups are working on the development of artificial muscles, however,…
Nature has always inspired scientists and engineers to understand the underlying mechanism leading to optimal design in bio-inspired dynamics. This study presents a computational framework for optimizing undulatory swimming profiles using a…