Related papers: Improving propulsive efficiency using bio-inspired…
Microorganisms and synthetic microswimmers often encounter complex environments consisting of networks of obstacles embedded into viscous fluids. Such settings include biological media, such as mucus with filamentous networks, as well as…
The motility skills of phytoplankton have evolved and persisted over millions of years, primarily in response to factors such as nutrient and light availability, temperature and viscosity gradients, turbulence, and predation pressure.…
Fish-inspired aquatic robots are gaining increasing attention in marine robot communities due to their high swimming speeds and efficient propulsion enabled by flexible bodies that generate undulatory motions. To support the design…
Undulatory locomotion is a means of self-propulsion that relies on the generation and propagation of waves along a body. As a mode of locomotion it is primitive and relatively simple, yet can be remarkably robust. No wonder then, that it is…
Leveraging background fluid flows for propulsion has the potential to enhance the range and speed of autonomous aerial and underwater vehicles. In this work, we demonstrate experimentally a fully autonomous strategy for exploiting vortex…
We experimentally study a scallop-like swimmer with reciprocally flapping wings in a nearly frictionless, cohesive granular medium consisting of hydrogel spheres. Significant locomotion is found when the swimmer's flapping frequency matches…
Biological locomotion in nature is often achieved by the interaction between a flexible body and its surrounding medium. The interaction of a flexible body with granular media is less understood compared with viscous fluids partially due to…
We analyze a way to make flight vehicles harvest energy from homogeneous turbulence by fast tracking in the way that falling inertial particles do. Mean airspeed increases relative to flight through quiescent fluid when turbulent eddies…
Jellyfish have been called one of the most energy-efficient animals in the world due to the ease in which they move through their fluid environment, by product of their morphological, muscular, and material properties. We investigated…
As platform size is reduced, the flight of aerial robots becomes increasingly energetically expensive. Limitations on payload and endurance of these small robots have prompted researchers to explore the use of bimodal aerial-surface…
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…
In addition to enabling movement towards environments with favourable living conditions, swimming by microorganisms has also been linked to enhanced mixing and improved nutrient uptake by their populations. Experimental studies have shown…
Energy efficiency is a critical factor in the performance and autonomy of quadrupedal robots. While previous research has focused on mechanical design and actuation improvements, the impact of gait parameters on energetics has been less…
Here we present a general overview of bio-inspired propulsion. We identify the major types of aquatic swimmers (oscillatory, undulatory, pulsatile, and drag-based) and break down their mechanisms for thrust production (drag-based,…
Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…
Most classical work on the hydrodynamics of low-Reynolds-number swimming addresses deterministic locomotion in quiescent environments. Thermal fluctuations in fluids are known to lead to a Brownian loss of the swimming direction. As most…
Undulatory slender objects have been a central theme in the hydrodynamics of swimming at low Reynolds number, where the slender body is usually assumed to be inextensible, although some microorganisms and artificial microrobots largely…
Bio-inspired underwater vehicles could yield improved efficiency, maneuverability, and environmental compatibility over conventional propeller-driven underwater vehicles. However, to realize the swimming performance of biology, there is a…
In legged locomotion, the relationship between different gait behaviors and energy consumption must consider the full-body dynamics and the robot control as a whole, which cannot be captured by simple models. This work studies the robot…
We focus on the problem of developing energy efficient controllers for quadrupedal robots. Animals can actively switch gaits at different speeds to lower their energy consumption. In this paper, we devise a hierarchical learning framework,…