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Inspired by the octopus and other animals living in water, soft robots should naturally lend themselves to underwater operations, as supported by encouraging validations in deep water scenarios. This work deals with equipping soft arms with…
We propose a combined analytical-numerical strategy to predict the dynamics and trajectory of a microswimmer next to a curved spherical obstacle. The microswimmer is actuated by a slip velocity on its surface and a uniformly valid solution…
Many motile microorganisms react to environmental light cues with a variety of motility responses guiding cells towards better conditions for survival and growth. The use of spatial light modulators could help to elucidate the mechanisms of…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
Small-size robots offer access to spaces that are inaccessible to larger ones. This type of access is crucial in applications such as drug delivery, environmental detection, and collection of small samples. However, there are some tasks…
Flagellated microswimmers are ubiquitous in natural habitats. Understanding the hydrodynamic behavior of these cells is of paramount interest, owing to their applications in bio-medical engineering and disease spreading. Since the last two…
We show that the recent experimental observation of the rectification of swimming bacteria in a system with an array of asymmetric barriers occurs due to the ballistic component of the bacteria trajectories introduced by the bacterial…
Microorganisms are able to overcome the thermal randomness of their surroundings by harvesting energy to navigate in viscous fluid environments. In a similar manner, synthetic colloidal microswimmers are capable of mimicking complex…
The human shoulder, with its glenohumeral joint, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, allows for the execution of complex tasks with precision and efficiency. However, current robotic shoulder designs lack the compliance and compactness…
The underlying mechanisms and physics of catalytic Janus microswimmers is highly complex, requiring details of the associated phoretic fields and the physiochemical properties of catalyst, particle, boundaries, and the fuel used. Therefore,…
Bio-hybrid systems---close couplings of natural organisms with technology---are high potential and still underexplored. In existing work, robots have mostly influenced group behaviors of animals. We explore the possibilities of mixing…
The swimming properties of an E. coli-type model bacterium are investigated by mesoscale hy- drodynamic simulations, combining molecular dynamics simulations of the bacterium with the multiparticle particle collision dynamics method for the…
Understanding the collective actuation of microscopic structures driven by external fields can lead to the development of next-generation autonomous machines. With this goal in mind, we investigated light-induced collective motion of…
Geometric confinement plays an important role in the dynamics of natural and synthetic microswimmers from bacterial cells to self-propelled particles in high-throughput microfluidic devices. However, little is known about the effects of…
We define a model microswimmer with a variable cycle time, thus allowing the possibility of phase locking driven by hydrodynamic interactions between swimmers. We find that, for extensile or contractile swimmers, phase locking does occur,…
Manipulating particles, such as cells and tissues, in a flowing liquid environment is crucial for life science research. Traditional contactless tweezers, although widely used for single-cell manipulation, face several challenges. These…
Inputs to signaling pathways can have complex statistics that depend on the environment and on the behavioral response to previous stimuli. Such behavioral feedback is particularly important in navigation. Successful navigation relies on…
The hydrodynamic interactions between a sedimenting microswimmer and a solid wall have ubiquitous biological and technological applications. A plethora of gravity-induced swimming dynamics near a planar no-slip wall provides a platform for…
We consider a finite-dimensional model for the motion of microscopic organisms whose propulsion exploits the action of a layer of cilia covering its surface. The model couples Newton's laws driving the organism, considered as a rigid body,…
Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…