Related papers: Optimal Gaits for Drag-dominated Swimmers with Pas…
The work presented in this report introduces a framework aimed towards learning to imitate human gaits. Humans exhibit movements like walking, running, and jumping in the most efficient manner, which served as the source of motivation for…
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…
Metachronal paddling is a swimming strategy in which an organism oscillates sets of adjacent limbs with a constant phase lag, propagating a metachronal wave through its limbs and propelling it forward. This limb coordination strategy is…
Worm-inspired robots provide an effective locomotion strategy for constrained environments by combining cyclic body deformation with alternating anchoring. For compliant robots, however, the interaction between deformable anchoring…
We present a method for system identification of flexible objects by measuring forces and displacement during interaction with a manipulating arm. We model the object's structure and flexibility by a chain of rigid bodies connected by…
In many engineered systems, optimization is used for decision making at time-scales ranging from real-time operation to long-term planning. This process often involves solving similar optimization problems over and over again with slightly…
We introduce a reinforcement learning (RL) environment to design and benchmark control strategies aimed at reducing drag in turbulent fluid flows enclosed in a channel. The environment provides a framework for computationally-efficient,…
We apply a reinforcement learning algorithm to show how smart particles can learn approximately optimal strategies to navigate in complex flows. In this paper we consider microswimmers in a paradigmatic three-dimensional case given by a…
The swimming of a deformable planar slab in a viscous incompressible fluid is studied on the basis of the Navier-Stokes equations. A continuum of plane wave displacements, symmetric on both sides of the slab and characterized by a…
This paper presents an analytical model and a geometric numerical integrator for a system of rigid bodies connected by ball joints, immersed in an irrotational and incompressible fluid. The rigid bodies can translate and rotate in…
Successfully achieving bipedal locomotion remains challenging due to real-world factors such as model uncertainty, random disturbances, and imperfect state estimation. In this work, we propose a novel metric for locomotive robustness -- the…
The optimal strategy for a microscopic swimmer to migrate across a linear shear flow is discussed. The two cases, in which the swimmer is located at large distance, and in the proximity of a solid wall, are taken into account. It is shown…
This study focuses on the locomotion capability improvement in a tendon-driven soft quadruped robot through an online adaptive learning approach. Leveraging the inverse kinematics model of the soft quadruped robot, we employ a central…
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…
Accurate and rapid detection of gait phases is of utmost importance in achieving optimal performance of powered lower-limb prostheses and exoskeletons. With the increasing versatility and complexity of these robotic systems, there is a…
Robots in dynamic environments need fast, accurate models of how objects move in their environments to support agile planning. In sports such as ping pong, analytical models often struggle to accurately predict ball trajectories with spins…
A new model for the numerical simulation of a rigid body moving in a viscous fluid flow using FEM is presented. One of the most interesting features of this approach is the small computational effort required to solve the motion of the…
We address the problem of controlling a dynamical system governing the motion of a 3D weighted shape changing body swimming in a perfect fluid. The rigid displacement of the swimmer results from the exchange of momentum between prescribed…
This study employs resolvent analysis to explore the dynamics and coherent structures in the boundary layer of a foil that swims via a travelling wave undulation. A modified NACA foil shape is used together with undulatory kinematics to…
A dynamic linear thermo-poroelasticity model, containing inertial and relaxation terms with second-order time derivatives, is investigated in this paper. The mathematical and numerical analysis of this model is performed in the frequency…