Related papers: Naut your everyday jellyfish model: Exploring how …
This paper introduces a reactive navigation framework for mobile robots in 3-dimensional (3D) space. The proposed approach does not rely on the global map information and achieves fast navigation by employing a tentacle based sampling and…
We use high-speed x-ray imaging to reveal how a small (~10cm) desert dwelling lizard, the sandfish (Scincus scincus), swims within a granular medium [1]. On the surface, the lizard uses a standard diagonal gait, but once below the surface,…
One of simplest examples of navigation found in nature is run-and-tumble chemotaxis. Tumbles reorient cells randomly, and cells can drift toward attractants or away from repellents by biasing the frequency of these events. The post-tumble…
Particular types of plankton in aquatic ecosystems can coordinate their motion depending on the local flow environment to reach regions conducive to their growth or reproduction. Investigating their swimming strategies with regard to the…
In this work we consider the following question: given a mechanical microswimming mechanism, does increased deformability of the swimmer body hinder or promote the motility of the swimmer? To answer this we study a microswimmer model…
A variety of swimming microorganisms, called ciliates, exploit the bending of a large number of small and densely-packed organelles, termed cilia, in order to propel themselves in a viscous fluid. We consider a spherical envelope model for…
How fish modulate their fin stiffness during locomotive manoeuvres remains unknown. We show that changing the fin's curvature modulates its stiffness. Modelling the fin as bendable bony rays held together by a membrane, we deduce that fin…
An axisymmetric squirmer in a Bingham viscoplastic fluid is studied numerically to determine the effect of a yield stress environment on locomotion. The nonlinearity of the governing equations necessitates numerical methods, which is…
Marine plankton are usually modeled as settling elongated micro-swimmers. For the first time, we consider the torque induced by fluid inertia on such swimmers, and we discover that they spontaneously swim in the direction opposite to…
Swimming cells and microorganisms must often move though complex fluids that contain an immersed microstructure such as polymer molecules, or filaments. In many important biological processes, such as mammalian reproduction and bacterial…
Fish rheotaxis, or alignment into flow currents, results from intertwined sensory, neural and actuation mechanisms, all coupled with hydrodynamics to produce a behavior that is critical for upstream migration and position holding in…
Metachronal locomotion is a widespread swimming mode used by aquatic swarming organisms to achieve performance and maneuverability in the intermediate Reynolds number regime. Our understanding of the mechanisms driving these abilities is…
Three-dimensional experiments are presented on a school of three pitching hydrofoils. Two side-by-side leader foils maintain the same relative positions while the location of a third follower foil is varied. Force and flow measurements…
We explore the velocity fluctuations in a fluid due to a dilute suspension of randomly-distributed vortex rings at moderate Reynolds number, for instance those generated by a large colony of jellyfish. Unlike previous analysis of velocity…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…
E. M. Purcell showed that a body has to perform non-reciprocal motion in order to propel itself in a highly viscous environment. The swimmer with one degree of freedom is bound to do reciprocal motion, whereby the center of mass of the…
The swimming trajectories of self-propelled organisms or synthetic devices in a viscous fluid can be altered by hydrodynamic interactions with nearby boundaries. We explore a multipole description of swimming bodies and provide a general…
Depending on multiple parameters, soft robots can exhibit different modes of locomotion that are difficult to model numerically. As a result, improving their performance is complex, especially in small-scale systems characterized by low…
Living organisms employ diverse strategies to navigate confined environments. Inspired by translocation observations on California blackworms (\textit{Lumbriculus variegatus}), we combine biological experiments and active-polymer…
Understanding efficient fish locomotion offers insights for biomechanics, fluid dynamics, and engineering. Traditional studies often miss the link between neuromuscular control and whole-body movement. To explore energy transfer in…