Related papers: Hydrodynamics can Determine the Optimal Route for …
Recent experiments and numerical simulations have shown that certain types of microorganisms "reflect" off of a flat surface at a critical angle of departure, independent of the angle of incidence. The nature of the reflection may be active…
We apply the macroscopic fluctuation theory to analyze the long-time statistics of the position of a tracer in the dense and the dilute limits of diffusive single-file systems. Our explicit results are about the corresponding large…
Efficient navigation in swarms often relies on the emergence of decentralized approaches that minimize traversal time or energy. Stigmergy, where agents modify a shared environment that then modifies their behavior, is a classic mechanism…
Flagellated bacteria are hydrodynamically attracted to rigid walls, yet past work shows a 'hovering' state where they swim stably at a finite height above surfaces. We use numerics and theory to reveal the physical origin of hovering.…
Biological microswimmers such as bacteria and sperm cells often encounter complex biological fluid environments. Here we use the well-known squirmer microswimmer model to show the importance of the local fluid microstructure and…
Navigation up a sensory gradient is one of the simplest behaviours, and the simplest strategy is run and tumble. But some organisms use other strategies, such as reversing direction or turning by some angle. Here we ask what drives the…
We explore the mechanism underlying the anomalous rheology of puller-type microswimmer suspensions through direct hydrodynamic simulations. Puller-type swimmers generate contractile flow fields along their swimming direction, leading to…
Motile microorganisms develop effective swimming gaits to adapt to complex biological environments. Translating this adaptability to smart microrobots presents significant challenges in motion planning and stroke design. In this work, we…
Cell motility in viscous fluids is ubiquitous and affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection, and the marine life ecosystem. Here we review the biophysical and mechanical principles of locomotion at the small…
The swimming direction of biological or artificial microscale swimmers tends to be randomised over long time-scales by thermal fluctuations. Bacteria use various strategies to bias swimming behaviour and achieve directed motion against a…
Motion planning for underwater vehicles must consider the effect of ocean currents. We present an efficient method to compute reachability and cost between sample points in sampling-based motion planning that supports long-range planning…
Swimming organisms can escape their predators by creating and harnessing unsteady flow fields through their body motions. Stochastic optimization and flow simulations have identified escape patterns that are consistent with those observed…
The behavior of fluid interfaces far from equilibrium plays central roles in nature and in industry. Active swimmers trapped at interfaces can alter transport at fluid boundaries with far reaching implications. Swimmers can become trapped…
In the study of microscopic flows, self-propulsion has been particularly topical in recent years, with the rise of miniature artificial swimmers as a new tool for flow control, low Reynolds number mixing, micromanipulation or even drug…
Objects moving in fluids experience patterns of stress on their surfaces determined by their motion and the geometry of nearby boundaries. Fish and underwater robots can use these patterns for navigation. This paper extends this…
What is the fastest way of finding a randomly hidden target? This question of general relevance is of vital importance for foraging animals. Experimental observations reveal that the search behaviour of foragers is generally intermittent:…
Cells swimming in viscous fluids create flow fields which influence the transport of relevant nutrients, and therefore their feeding rate. We propose a modeling approach to the problem of optimal feeding at zero Reynolds number. We consider…
We analyze a minimal model for a rigid spherical microswimmer and explore the consequences of its extended surface on the interplay between its self-propulsion and flow properties. The model is the first order representation of…
The presence of obstacles is intuitively expected to hinder the diffusive transport of micro-swimmers. However, for chiral micro-swimmers, a low density of obstacles near a surface can enhance their diffusive behavior, due to the…
The overall traffic of droplets in a network of microfluidic channels is strongly influenced by the liquid properties of the moving droplets. In particular, the effective hydrodynamic resistance of individual droplets plays a key role in…