Related papers: Optimal Locomotion for Limbless Crawlers
Motility is a ubiquitous feature of microbial life on Earth, and is widely regarded as a promising biosignature candidate. In the search for motile organisms, it is therefore valuable to have rough estimates for the number of such microbes…
Saving energy and enhancing performance are secular preoccupations shared by both nature and human beings. In animal locomotion, flapping flyers or swimmers rely on the flexibility of their wings or body to passively increase their…
Dissipative environments are ubiquitous in nature, from microscopic swimmers in low-Reynolds-number fluids to macroscopic animals in frictional media. In this study, motivated by various behaviours of {\it Caenorhabditis elegans} during…
The mechanosensitivity of cells, which determines how they are able to respond to mechanical signals received from their environment, is crucial for the functioning of all biological systems. In experiments, cells placed on cyclically…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
In this paper, we deal with a size-variable group of pedestrians moving in a unknown confined environment and searching for an exit. Pedestrian dynamics are simulated by means of a recently introduced microscopic (agent-based) model,…
The locomotion of flexible membrane-like organisms on top of curved surfaces appears in different contexts and scales. Still, such dynamics have not yet been quantitatively modeled and no realization of such motion in manmade systems has…
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…
Understanding the complex patterns in space-time exhibited by active systems has been the subject of much interest in recent times. Complementing this forward problem is the inverse problem of controlling active matter. Here we use optimal…
Natural swimmers rely for their survival on sensors that gather information from the environment and guide their actions. The spatial organization of these sensors, such as the visual fish system and lateral line, suggests evolutionary…
Fishes, cetaceans, and many other aquatic vertebrates undulate their bodies to propel themselves through water. Swimming requires an intricate interplay between sensing the environment, making decisions, controlling internal dynamics, and…
Limbless locomotors, from microscopic worms to macroscopic snakes, traverse complex, heterogeneous natural environments typically using undulatory body wave propagation. Theoretical and robophysical models typically emphasize body…
While the dynamics of polymer chains in equilibrium media is well understood by now, the polymer dynamics in active non-equilibrium environments can be very different. Here we study the dynamics of polymers in a viscous medium containing…
Constructing physical models of living cells and tissues is an extremely challenging task because of the high complexities of both intra- and intercellular processes. In addition, the force that a single cell generates vanishes in total due…
The physical and bio-mechanical principles that govern undulatory movement on wet surfaces have important applications in physiology, physics, and engineering. The nematode {\it C. elegans}, with its highly stereotypical and functionally…
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…
A living cell actively generates traction forces on its environment with its actin cytoskeleton. These forces deform the cell elastic substrate which, in turn, affects the traction forces exerted by the cell and can consequently modify the…
Actuating periodically an elastic filament in a viscous liquid generally breaks the constraints of Purcell's scallop theorem, resulting in the generation of a net propulsive force. This observation suggests a method to design simple…
Mobility on asteroids by multi-limbed climbing robots is expected to achieve our exploration goals in such challenging environments. We propose a mobility strategy to improve the locomotion safety of climbing robots in such harsh…
Animals locomote for various reasons: to search for food, find suitable habitat, pursue prey, escape from predators, or seek a mate. The grand scale of biodiversity contributes to the great locomotory design and mode diversity. Various…