Related papers: Optimal Locomotion for Limbless Crawlers
Mesh-like structures, such as mucus gel or cytoskeleton networks, are ubiquitous in biological systems. These intricate structures are composed of cross-linked, semi-flexible bio-filaments, crucial to numerous biological processes. In many…
There is increasing evidence that mammalian cells not only crawl on substrates but can also swim in fluids. To elucidate the mechanisms of the onset of motility of cells in suspension, a model which couples actin and myosin kinetics to…
In this article, a theoretical justification of one type of skew-symmetric optimal translational motion (moving in the minimal acceptable time) of a flexible object carried by a robot from its initial to its final position of absolute…
We study the dynamics of an ideal polymer chain in a crowded, viscoelastic medium and in the presence of active forces. The motion of the centre of mass and of individual monomers is calculated. On time scales that are comparable to the…
Balancing oneself using the spine is a physiological alignment of the body posture in the most efficient manner by the muscular forces for mammals. For this reason, we can see many disabled quadruped animals can still stand or walk even…
Ciliated microorganisms near the base of the aquatic food chain either swim to encounter prey or attach at a substrate and generate feeding currents to capture passing particles. Here, we represent attached and swimming ciliates using a…
Complex or hostile environments can sometimes inhibit the movement capabilities of diffusive particles or active swimmers, who may thus become stuck in fixed positions. This occurs, for example, in the adhesion of bacteria to surfaces at…
Swarming or collective motion of living entities is one of the most common and spectacular manifestations of living systems having been extensively studied in recent years. A number of general principles have been established. The…
Nature suggests that exploiting the elasticities and natural dynamics of robotic systems could increase their locomotion efficiency. Prior work on elastic snake robots supports this hypothesis, but has not fully exploited the nonlinear…
Navigation of microorganisms is controlled by internal processes ultimately sensitive to mechanical or chemical signaling encountered along the path. In many natural environments, such as porous soils or physiological ducts, motile species…
In this theoretical study, we present an analytical framework to investigate the slithering motion of snakes on flat surfaces. While previous studies have predominantly relied on numerical methods to identify optimal locomotion kinematics,…
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…
We have developed biped robots with a passive dynamic walking mechanism. This study proposes a compass model with a wobbling mass connected to the upper body and oscillating in the horizontal direction to clarify the influence of the…
We consider active Brownian particles that intermittently switch between active and inactive states. Such behavior is ubiquitous at all scales, from bacteria to animals and in artificial active systems. We derive exact expressions for key…
The dynamic response of prestressed semiflexible biopolymers is characterized by the propagation and relaxation of tension, which arises due to the near inextensibility of a stiff backbone. It is coupled to the dynamics of contour length…
Production of energy is a foundation of life. Metabolic rate of organisms (amount of energy produced per unit time) generally increases slower than organisms' mass, which has important implications for life organization. This phenomenon,…
Motility is an essential factor for an organism's survival and diversification. With the advent of novel single-cell technologies, analytical frameworks and theoretical methods, we can begin to probe the complex lives of microscopic motile…
We study the asymptotic behaviour of a family of dynamic models of crawling locomotion, with the aim of characterizing a gait as a limit property. The locomotors, which might have a discrete or continuous body, move on a line with a…
We study transport of interacting particles in weakly disordered media. Our one-dimensional system includes (i) disorder: the hopping rate governing the movement of a particle between two neighboring lattice sites is inhomogeneous, and (ii)…
In a variety of biological processes, eukaryotic cells use cilia to transport flow. Although cilia have a remarkably conserved internal molecular structure, experimental observations report very diverse kinematics. To address this…