Related papers: Modelling, Controllability and Gait Design for a S…
The simple model of a low Reynolds number swimmer made from three spheres that are connected by two arms is considered in its general form and analyzed. The swimming velocity, force--velocity response, power consumption, and efficiency of…
A recent promising technique for robotic micro-swimmers is to endow them with a magnetization and apply an external magnetic field to provoke their deformation. In this note we consider a simple planar micro-swimmer model made of two…
Swimming consists by definition in propelling through a fluid by means of bodily movements. Thus, from a mathematical point of view, swimming turns into a control problem for which the controls are the deformations of the swimmer. The aim…
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…
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…
Squirmers are models of a class of microswimmers, such as ciliated organisms and phoretic particles, that self-propel in fluids without significant deformation of their body shape. Available techniques for their simulation are based on the…
The motion of biological micro-robots -- similar to that of swimming microorganisms such as bacteria or spermatozoa -- is governed by different physical rules than what we experience in our daily life. This is particularly due to the…
The behaviour of microscopic swimmers has previously been explored near large scale confining geometries and in the presence of very small-scale surface roughness. Here we consider an intermediate case of how a simple microswimmer, the…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
With the continuing rapid development of artificial microrobots and active particles, questions of microswimmer guidance and control are becoming ever more relevant and prevalent. In both the applications and theoretical study of such…
Here we introduce a two-dimensional (2D) low-Reynolds swimmer and discuss the motion of the swimmer both in noise-free and stochastic regimes. Three spheres, linked by extensible arms, in a plane form the triangle body of micro-swimmer.…
We employ three numerical methods to explore the motion of low Reynolds number swimmers, modeling the hydrodynamic interactions by means of the Oseen tensor approximation, lattice Boltzmann simulations and multiparticle collision dynamics.…
Inspired by recent experiments using synthetic microswimmers to manipulate droplets, we investigate the low-Reynolds-number locomotion of a model swimmer (a spherical squirmer) encapsulated inside a droplet of comparable size in another…
Swimming, i.e., being able to advance in the absence of external forces by performing cyclic shape changes, is particularly demanding at low Reynolds numbers which is the regime of interest for micro-organisms and micro-robots. We focus on…
We discuss a micro-swimmer model made of three spheres actuated by an internal active time-periodic force, tied by an elastic potential and submitted to hydrodynamic interactions with thermal noise. The dynamical approach we use, replacing…
In this article, we are interested in studying locomotion strategies for a class of shape-changing bodies swimming in a fluid. This class consists of swimmers subject to a particular linear dynamics, which includes the two most investigated…
In a recent letter (Friedrich et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 109:138102, 2012), a minimal model swimmer was proposed that propels itself at low Reynolds numbers by a revolving motion of a pair of spheres. The motion of the two spheres can…
We study the local controllability properties of 2D and 3D bio-mimetic swimmers employing the change of their geometric shape to propel themselves in an incompressible fluid described by Navier-Stokes equations. It is assumed that swimmers'…
As technological advances allow us to fabricate smaller autonomous self-propelled devices, it is clear that at some point directed propulsion could not come from pre-specified deterministic periodic deformation of the swimmer's body and we…
Biological organisms swimming at low Reynolds number are often influenced by the presence of rigid boundaries and soft interfaces. In this paper we present an analysis of locomotion near a free surface with surface tension. Using a…