Related papers: Self-Healing Small-Scale Swimmers
We review recent advances in rectification control of artificial microswimmers, also known as Janus particles, diffusing along narrow, periodically corrugated channels. The swimmer self-propulsion mechanism is modeled so as to incorporate a…
Microorganisms have evolved diverse strategies to propel in viscous fluids, navigate complex environments, and exhibit taxis in response to stimuli. This has inspired the development of synthetic microrobots, where machine learning (ML) is…
The navigation of micro-robots in complex flow environments is controlled by rheotaxis, the reorientation with respect to flow gradients. Here we demonstrate how payloads can be exploited to enhance the motion against flows. Using fully…
Active systems comprising micron-sized self-propelling units, also termed microswimmers, are promising candidates for the bottom-up assembly of small structures and reconfigurable materials. Here we leverage field-driven colloidal assembly…
Micro-organisms expend energy moving through complex media. While propulsion speed is an important property of locomotion, efficiency is another factor that may determine the swimming gait adopted by a micro-organism in order to locomote in…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
In recent years, the research of rehabilitation robot technology has become a hotspot in the field of rehabilitation medicine engineering and robotics. To assist active rehabilitation in patients with unilateral lower extremity injury, we…
The backswimmer fly is an aquatic insect, capable of regulating its buoyancy underwater. Its abdomen is covered with hemoglobin cells, used to bind and release oxygen, reversibly. Upon entering water, the fly entraps an air bubble in a…
Surface interactions provide a class of mechanisms which can be employed for propulsion of micro- and nanometer sized particles. We investigate the related efficiency of externally and self-propelled swimmers. A general scaling relation is…
Self-propelled microparticles create flow fields that determine how they interact with surfaces, external flows, and each other. These flow fields fall into distinct classes--pushers, pullers, and neutral swimmers--each exhibiting…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
Recent findings of possible applications of bio-friendly synthetic self-phoretic swimmers, have motivated the researchers in investigating the various motion-generating mechanisms to optimize the operating characteristics of the same. In…
Biological microswimmers often encounter deformable boundaries in physiological conditions; for instance, the viscoelastic walls of reproductive tract during migration of spermatozoa, or host tissue during early bacterial biofilm formation.…
We study the fluid dynamics of two fish-like bodies with synchronised swimming patterns. Our studies are based on two-dimensional simulations of viscous incompressible flows. We distinguish between motion patterns that are externally…
Star polymers with magnetically functionalized end groups are presented as a novel polymeric system whose morphology, self-aggregation, and orientation can easily be tuned by exposing these macromolecules simultaneously to an external…
The ability to navigate in complex, inhomogeneous environments is fundamental to survival at all length scales, giving rise to the rapid development of various subfields in bio-locomotion such as the well established concept of chemotaxis.…
Metal-film dielectric capacitors provide lump portions of energy on demand. While the capacities of various capacitor designs are comparable in magnitude, their stabilities make a difference. Dielectric breakdowns - micro-discharges -…
Snapping beams enable rapid geometric transitions through nonlinear instability, offering an efficient means of generating motion in soft robotic systems. In this study, a tendon-driven mechanism consisting of spiral-based metabeams was…
Semiconductor microelectronics are emerging as a powerful tool for building smart, autonomous robots too small to see with the naked eye. Yet a number of existing microrobot platforms, despite significant advantages in speed, robustness,…
Self-healing silicones that are able to restore the functionalities and extend the lifetime of soft devices hold great potential in many applications. However, currently available silicones need to be triggered to self-heal or suffer from…