Related papers: Physics of rowing oars
In the fields of robotics and biomechanics, the integration of elastic elements such as springs and tendons in legged systems has long been recognized for enabling energy-efficient locomotion. Yet, a significant challenge persists:…
Research in machine learning is making progress in fixing its own reproducibility crisis. Reinforcement learning (RL), in particular, faces its own set of unique challenges. Comparison of point estimates, and plots that show successful…
In evolutionary robotics, jointly optimising the design and the controller of robots is a challenging task due to the huge complexity of the solution space formed by the possible combinations of body and controller. We focus on the…
Empirical data reveals a broad variety of hull shapes among the different ship categories. We present a minimal theoretical approach to address the problem of ship hull optimisation. We show that optimal hull aspect ratios result -- at…
Shells, i.e., objects made of a thin layer of material following a surface, are among the most common structures in use. They are highly efficient, in terms of material required to maintain strength, but also prone to deformation and…
Fish typically swim by periodic bending of their bodies. Bending seems to follow a universal rule; it occurs at about one-third from the posterior end of the fish body with a maximum bending angle of about $30^o$. However, the hydrodynamic…
Reinforcement learning agents learn from rewards, but humans can uniquely assign value to novel, abstract outcomes in a goal-dependent manner. However, this flexibility is cognitively costly, making learning less efficient. Here, we propose…
Optimal postural stability is required to perform in archery. Since the dynamic consequences of the string release may disturb the archer's postural equilibrium, they should have integrated them in their motor program to optimize postural…
The swimming of a spheroid immersed in a viscous fluid and performing surface deformations periodically in time is studied on the basis of Stokes equations of low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The average over a period of time of the…
Most aquatic vertebrates swim by lateral flapping of their bodies and caudal fins. While much effort has been devoted to understanding the flapping kinematics and its influence on the swimming efficiency, little is known about the stability…
Flexibility design problems are a class of problems that appear in strategic decision-making across industries, where the objective is to design a ($e.g.$, manufacturing) network that affords flexibility and adaptivity. The underlying…
Data is scaling exponentially in fields ranging from genomics to neuroscience to economics. A central question is: can modern machine learning methods be applied to construct predictive models of natural systems like cells and brains based…
Optimal locomotion and efficient traversal of extraterrestrial rovers in dynamic terrains and environments is an important problem statement in the field of planetary science and geophysical systems. Designing a superlative and efficient…
We present a physically-inspired model and an efficient algorithm to infer hierarchical rankings of nodes in directed networks. It assigns real-valued ranks to nodes rather than simply ordinal ranks, and it formalizes the assumption that…
Crumpled paper or drapery patterns are everyday examples of how elastic sheets can respond to external forcing. In this Letter, we study experimentally a novel sort of forcing. We consider a circular flexible plate clamped at its center and…
We extend the standard reinforcement learning framework to random time horizons. While the classical setting typically assumes finite and deterministic or infinite runtimes of trajectories, we argue that multiple real-world applications…
Robotic packaging using wrapping paper poses significant challenges due to the material's complex deformation properties. The packaging process itself involves multiple steps, primarily categorized as folding the paper or creating creases.…
Methods for predicting the likely upper economic limit for the wind fleet in the United Kingdom should be simple to use whilst being able to cope with evolving technologies, costs and grid management strategies. This paper present two such…
The growth rate of organisms depends both on external conditions and on internal states, such as the expression levels of various genes. We show that to achieve a criterion mean growth rate over an ensemble of conditions, the internal…
We present direct numerical simulations of a novel concept for a micro-scale wind turbine, inspired in the mechanics of the auto-rotation of winged seeds. In this nature-inspired concept the turbine blades have two degrees of freedom: the…