Related papers: Miniature insect flight
Intuitively, slow droplets stick to a surface and faster droplets splash or bounce. However, recent work suggests that on non-wetting surfaces, whether microdroplets stick or bounce depends only on their size and fluid properties, but not…
Flying insects are thought to achieve energy-efficient flapping flight by storing and releasing elastic energy in their muscles, tendons, and thorax. However, flight systems consisting elastic elements coupled to nonlinear, unsteady…
A corrugated structure, rather than a smooth surface, is a characteristic feature of insect wings (e.g., dragonfly wings), which enhances their aerodynamic performance at low Reynolds numbers ($Re \simeq O(10^3)$). However, the mechanisms…
Bristled and membranous insect wings have co-evolved despite apparently serving the same functionality. We emulate flight physics using an automated free-fall experiment to better understand how and why several distinct wing forms may have…
We introduce Bee$^+$, a 95-mg four-winged microrobot with improved controllability and open-loop-response characteristics with respect to those exhibited by state-of-the-art two-winged microrobots with the same size and similar weight…
This expository review is devoted to fish swimming and bird/insect flight. (i) The simple waving motion of an elongated flexible ribbon plate of constant width, immersed in a fluid at rest, propagating a wave distally down the plate to swim…
Capillary jetting of a fluid dispersed into another immiscible phase is usually limited by a critical Capillary number, a function of the Reynolds number and the fluid properties ratios. Critical conditions are set when the minimum…
Motion perception is a critical capability determining a variety of aspects of insects' life, including avoiding predators, foraging and so forth. A good number of motion detectors have been identified in the insects' visual pathways.…
Bio-inspired flapping wings have been extensively studied for their remarkable aerodynamic performance. Recently, their noise emission has attracted growing interest, but a careful analysis of scaling laws for their sound generation is…
Fluid dynamics, and flight in particular, is a domain where organisms challenge our understanding of its physics. Integrating the current knowledge of animal flight, we propose to revisit the use of live animals to study physical phenomena.…
Biological locomotion, observed in the flexible wings of birds and insects, bodies and fins of aquatic mammals and fishes, consists of their ability to morph the wings/fins. The morphing capability holds significance in the abilities of…
An experimental research concerning highly underexpanded jets made of different gases from the surrounding ambient is here described. By selecting different species of gases, it was possible to vary the jet-to-ambient density ratio in the…
We study the role of unsteady lift in the context of flapping wings in birds' flight. Both aerodynamicists and biologists attempt to address this subject, yet it seems that the contribution of the unsteady lift still holds many open…
The propulsion of a flapping wing or foil is emblematic of bird flight and fish swimming. Previous studies have identified hallmarks of the propulsive dynamics that have been attributed to unsteady effects such as the formation and shedding…
The source of the hummingbirds distinctive hum is not well understood, but there are clues to its origin in the acoustic nearfield and farfield. To unravel this mystery, we recorded the acoustic nearfield generated by six freely hovering…
Forward-swept wings offer unique advantages in the aerodynamic performance of air vehicles. However, the low-Reynolds-number characteristics of such wings have not been explored in the past. In this work, we numerically study laminar…
What is behind the \emph{wisdom of the crowds} described by Simons (2004)? It has been showed that insects may use gravitational fields to travel (Dreyer et al 2018) and we may ask whether the use of gravitational fields is enough to secure…
The liquid cone-jet mode can be produced upon stimulation by a co-flowing gas sheath. Most applications deal with the jet breakup, leading to either of two droplet generation regimes: jetting and dripping. The cone-jet flow pattern is…
Due to aerodynamic instabilities, stabilizing flapping flight requires ever-present fast corrective actions. Here we investigate how flies control body roll angle, their most susceptible degree of freedom. We glue a magnet to each fly,…
The dynamics and deformations of immersed flexible fibers are at the heart of important industrial and biological processes, induce peculiar mechanical and transport properties in the fluids that contain them, and are the basis for novel…