Related papers: Self-Healing Small-Scale Swimmers
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
The locomotion of microorganisms and spermatozoa in complex viscoelastic fluids is of critical importance in many biological processes such as fertilization, infection, and biofilm formation. Depending on their propulsion mechanisms,…
We combine a general formulation of microswimmmer equations of motion with a numerical bead-shell model to calculate the hydrodynamic interactions with the fluid, from which the swimming speed, power and efficiency are extracted. From this…
Vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, thrombosis, and aneurysms can lead to life-threatening medical events. Conventional catheter- or guidewire-based interventional devices often struggle to navigate through highly tortuous…
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…
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…
Most synthetic microswimmers do not reach the autonomy of their biological counterparts in terms of energy supply and diversity of motion. Here we report the first all-aqueous droplet swimmer powered by self-generated polyelectrolyte…
Biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery, microsurgery, and sensing rely on reaching precise areas within the body in a minimally invasive way. Artificial bacterial flagella (ABFs) have emerged as potential tools for this task…
Microswimmers can acquire information on the surrounding fluid by sensing mechanical queues. They can then navigate in response to these signals. We analyse this navigation by combining deep reinforcement learning with direct numerical…
Achieving macroscopic directed migration of microscale swimmers in a fluid is an important step towards utilizing their autonomous motion. It has been experimentally shown that directed motion can be induced, without any external fields, by…
Artificial microswimmers, nano and microrobots, are essential in many applications from engineering to biology and medicine. We present a Stokesian Dynamics study of the dynamical properties and efficiency of one of the simplest artificial…
Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…
Self-propelled micromotors can efficiently convert ambient energy into mechanical motion, which is of great interest for its potential biomedical applications in delivering therapeutics noninvasively. However, navigating these micromotors…
A variety of swimming microorganisms, called ciliates, exploit the bending of a large number of small and densely-packed organelles, termed cilia, in order to propel themselves in a viscous fluid. We consider a spherical envelope model for…
Micro-swimmers put into motion by a rotating magnetic field have provided interesting challenges both in engineering and in mathematical modelling. We study here the dynamics of a permanent-magnetic rigid body submitted to a…
Worm-like filaments that are propelled homogeneously along their tangent vector are studied by Brownian dynamics simulations. Systems in two dimensions are investigated, corresponding to filaments adsorbed to interfaces or surfaces. A large…
We design new navigation strategies for travel time optimization of microscopic self-propelled particles in complex and noisy environments. In contrast to strategies relying on the results of optimal control theory, these protocols allow…
The Magnetic Sail is a space propulsion system that utilizes the interaction between solar wind particles and an artificial dipole magnetic field generated by a spacecraft's coil to produce thrust without the need for additional plasma or…
Self-healing of polymer films often takes place as the molecules diffuse across a damaged region, above their melting temperature. Using molecular dynamics simulations we probe the healing of polymer films and compare the results with those…
This work aims at finding optimal navigation policies for thin, deformable microswimmers that progress in a viscous fluid by propagating a sinusoidal undulation along their slender body. These active filaments are embedded in a prescribed,…