Related papers: Control and controllability of microswimmers by a …
Safety concerns during the operation of legged robots must be addressed to enable their widespread use. Machine learning-based control methods that use model-based constraints provide promising means to improve robot safety. This study…
Microscopic self-propelled swimmers capable of autonomous navigation through complex environments provide appealing opportunities for localization, pick-up and delivery of micro-and nanoscopic objects. Inspired by motile cells and bacteria,…
Microscopic artificial swimmers have recently become highly attractive due to their promising potential for biomedical applications. The pioneering work of Dreyfus et al (2005) has demonstrated the motion of a microswimmer with an…
The control of marine robots has long relied on model-based methods grounded in classical and modern control theory. However, the nonlinearity and uncertainties inherent in robot dynamics, coupled with the complexity of marine environments,…
Design of robots at the small scale is a trial-and-error based process, which is costly and time-consuming. There are few dynamic simulation tools available to accurately predict the motion or performance of untethered microrobots as they…
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…
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…
Commonplace in oceanography is the collection of ocean drifter positions. Ocean drifters are devices that sit on the surface of the ocean and move with the flow, transmitting their position via GPS to stations on land. Using drifter data,…
This paper discusses modelling, controllability and gait design for a spherical flexible swimmer. We first present a kinematic model of a low Reynolds number spherical flexible swimming mechanism with periodic surface deformations in the…
Marine microorganisms must cope with complex flow patterns and even turbulence as they navigate the ocean. To survive they must avoid predation and find efficient energy sources. A major difficulty in analysing possible survival strategies…
A theory is presented for wave-driven propulsion of floating bodies driven into oscillation at the fluid interface. By coupling the equations of motion of the body to a quasi-potential flow model of the fluid, we derive expressions for the…
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 demonstrate with experiments and simulations how microscopic self-propelled particles navigate through environments presenting complex spatial features, which mimic the conditions inside cells, living organisms and future lab-on-a-chip…
Microswimmers, especially in theoretical treatments, are generally taken to be completely inertia-free, since inertial effects on their motion are typically small and assuming their absence simplifies the problem considerably. Yet in nature…
The realization of artificial microscopic swimmers able to propel in viscous fluids is an emergent research field of fundamental interest and vast technological applications. For certain functionalities, the efficiency of the microswimmer…
We present a detailed numerical study of a microscopic artificial swimmer realized recently by Dreyfus et al. in experiments [R. Dreyfus et al., Nature 437, 862 (2005)]. It consists of an elastic filament composed of superparamagnetic…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
A model for the development of turbulent shear flows, created by non-uniform parallel flows in a confining channel, is used to identify the diffuser shape that maximises pressure recovery when the inflow is non-uniform. Wide diffuser angles…
Studies of model microswimmers have significantly contributed to the understanding of the principles of self-propulsion we have today. However, only a small number of microswimmer types have been amenable to analytic modeling, and further…
Transport of material across liquid interfaces is ubiquitous for living cells and is also a crucial step in drug delivery and in many industrial processes. The fluids that are present on either side of the interfaces will usually have…