Related papers: Energy-positive soaring using transient turbulent …
Active fluids operate by constantly dissipating energy at the particle level to perform a directed motion, yielding dynamics and phases without any equilibrium equivalent. The emerging behaviors have been studied extensively, yet…
Motivated by the problem of pursuit-evasion, we present a motion planning framework that combines energy-based diffusion models with artificial potential fields for robust real time trajectory generation in complex environments. Our…
A convex formulation is proposed for optimal energy management in aircraft with hybrid propulsion systems consisting of gas turbine and electric motor components. By combining a point-mass aircraft dynamical model with models of electrical…
We study a wide field motion sensitive neuron in the visual system of the blowfly {\em Calliphora vicina}. By rotating the fly on a stepper motor outside in a wooded area, and along an angular motion trajectory representative of natural…
We formulate a kinetic theory of two species of hard spheres undergoing reactive collisions that convert chemical energy into kinetic energy. The model describes an active species interacting with a passive background, labeled as birds and…
We study experimentally a four-winged flapping flyer with chord-wise flexible wings in a self-propelled setup. For a given physical configuration of the flyer (i.e. fixed distance between the forewing and hindwing pairs and fixed wing…
A technique by which a spacecraft can interact with flows of ionized gas in space (the solar wind or interstellar medium) to be accelerated to velocities greater than the wind velocity is explored. Inspired by the dynamic soaring maneuvers…
The possibility of microscopic swimming by extraction of energy from an external flow is discussed, focusing on the migration of a simple trimer across a linear shear flow. The geometric properties of swimming, together with the possible…
Fast, autonomous flight in unstructured, cluttered environments such as forests is challenging because it requires the robot to compute new plans in realtime on a computationally-constrained platform. In this paper, we enable this…
In this paper, we tackle the problem of flying a quadrotor using time-optimal control policies that can be replanned online when the environment changes or when encountering unknown disturbances. This problem is challenging as the…
We study a simple model of a foraging animal that modifies the substrate on which it moves. This substrate provides its only resource, and the forager manage it by taking a limited portion at each visited site. The resource recovers its…
Extracting energy from fluctuations has been an everlasting endeavor. An important strategy is to use information-based operation, which allows energy extraction even from thermal fluctuations. However, it remains unclear whether a blind…
Airborne wind energy systems are capable of extracting energy from higher wind speeds at higher altitudes. The configuration considered in this paper is based on a tethered kite flown in a pumping orbit. This pumping cycle generates energy…
A study on filtering aspects of airborne wind energy generators is presented. This class of renewable energy systems aims to convert the aerodynamic forces generated by tethered wings, flying in closed paths transverse to the wind flow,…
Hovering insects are limited by their physiology and need to rotate their wings at the end of each back and forth motion to keep the wing's leading edge ahead of its trailing edge. The wing rotation at the end of each half-stroke pushes the…
Energy-harvesting systems in complex flow environments, such as floating offshore wind turbines, tidal turbines, and ground-fixed turbines in axial gusts, encounter unsteady streamwise flow conditions that affect their power generation and…
An approach to control tethered wings for airborne wind energy is proposed. A fixed length of the lines is considered, and the aim of the control system is to obtain figure-eight crosswind trajectories. The proposed technique is based on…
Fish in schooling formations navigate complex flow-fields replete with mechanical energy in the vortex wakes of their companions. Their schooling behaviour has been associated with evolutionary advantages including collective energy…
Despite contending with constraints imposed by the environment, morphology, and physiology, animals move well by physically interactingwith the environment to use and transition between modes such as running, climbing, and self-righting. By…
A novel and powerful method is presented for the study of rare switching events in complex systems with multiscale energy landscapes. The method performs an umbrella sampling of the equilibrium distribution of the system in hyperplanes…