Related papers: Tuning upstream swimming of micro-robots by shape …
Viscoelasticity governs the locomotion strategies of deformable microorganisms, rendering it a fundamental mechanical property of microbial motility and an integral component in the design of envisioned microbots. Recent studies have shown…
Many plankton species undergo daily vertical migration to large depths in the turbulent ocean. To do this efficiently, the plankton can use a gyrotactic mechanism, aligning them with gravity to swim downwards, or against gravity to swim…
Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example…
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…
Effective robot navigation in unseen environments is a challenging task that requires precise control actions at high frequencies. Recent advances have framed it as an image-goal-conditioned control problem, where the robot generates…
The use of tank-treading as a means of propulsion for microswimmers in viscous shear flows is taken into exam. We discuss the possibility that a vesicle be able to control the drift in an external shear flow, by varying locally the bending…
We use reinforcement learning to find strategies that allow microswimmers in turbulence to avoid regions of large strain. This question is motivated by the hypothesis that swimming microorganisms tend to avoid such regions to minimise the…
We study the orientational and translational dynamics of spherical microswimmers trapped at fluid interfaces, in terms of the force dipole and source dipole components of their flow field. Using numerical simulations and analytical…
Interaction of swimming bacteria with flows controls their ability to explore complex environments, crucial to many societal and environmental challenges and relevant for microfluidic applications as cell sorting. Combining experimental,…
When navigating complex environments, animals often combine multiple strategies to mitigate the effects of external disturbances. These modalities often correspond to different sources of information, leading to speed-accuracy trade-offs.…
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…
An important function of autonomous microrobots is the ability to perform robust movement over terrain. This paper explores an edge ML approach to microrobot locomotion, allowing for on-device, lower latency control under compute, memory,…
The ability of microswimmers to deploy optimal propulsion strategies is of paramount importance for their locomotory performance and survival at low Reynolds numbers. Although for perfectly spherical swimmers minimum dissipation requires a…
Physics governing the locomotion of microorganisms and other microsystems is dominated by viscous damping. An effective swimming strategy involves the non-reciprocal and periodic deformations of the considered body. Here, we show that a…
We present an efficient algorithm for motion planning and control of a robot system with a high number of degrees-of-freedom. These include high-DOF soft robots or an articulated robot interacting with a deformable environment. Our approach…
We show that flocking of microswimmers in a turbulent flow can enhance the efficacy of reinforcement-learning-based path-planning of microswimmers in turbulent flows. In particular, we develop a machine-learning strategy that incorporates…
The near-bottom mixing that allows abyssal waters to upwell tilts isopycnals and spins up flow over the flanks of mid-ocean ridges. Meso- and large-scale currents along sloping topography are subjected to a delicate balance of Ekman arrest…
Many microorganisms swim by performing larger non-reciprocal shape deformations that are initiated locally by molecular motors. However, it remains unclear how decentralized shape control determines the movement of the entire organism.…
We study self propelled stokesian robots composed of assemblies of balls, in dimensions 2 and 3, and prove that they are able to control their position and orientation. This is a result of controllability, and its proof relies on applying…
Cross-flow turbines, also known as vertical-axis turbines, have numerous features that make them attractive for wind and marine renewable energy. To maximize power output, the turbine blade kinematics may be controlled during the course of…