Related papers: Advancing flight physics through natural adaptatio…
Diversity and specialization of behavior in insects is unmatched. Insects hop, walk, run, jump, row, swim, glide and fly to propel themselves in a variety of environments. We have uncovered an unusual mode of propulsion of aerodynamic…
Biological intelligence is inherently adaptive -- animals continually adjust their actions based on environmental feedback. However, creating adaptive artificial intelligence (AI) remains a major challenge. The next frontier is to go beyond…
We present a design of a bird-inspired morphing wing aircraft, including bionic research, modeling, simulation and flight experiments. Inspired by birds and activated by a planar linkage, our proposed aircraft has three key states: gliding,…
The extraordinary aerial agility of hummingbirds and insects continues to inspire the design of flapping-wing drones. To replicate and analyze such flight, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations that couple flow solvers with rigid…
Nature is in constant flux, so animals must account for changes in their environment when making decisions. How animals learn the timescale of such changes and adapt their decision strategies accordingly is not well understood. Recent…
Tried-and-true flapping wing robot simulation is essential in developing flapping wing mechanisms and algorithms. This paper presents a novel application-oriented flapping wing platform, highly compatible with various mechanical designs and…
Turbulence is omnipresent in the atmosphere and a long-standing scientific conundrum that makes flight complex. This complexity is little understood; surprisingly, when turbulence arises, air vehicles struggle while birds seem to thrive.…
Accurate and efficient fluid flow models are essential for applications relating to many physical phenomena including geophysical, aerodynamic, and biological systems. While these flows may exhibit rich and multiscale dynamics, in many…
Machine learned force fields typically require manual construction of training sets consisting of thousands of first principles calculations, which can result in low training efficiency and unpredictable errors when applied to structures…
While experiencing atmospheric turbulence on a commercial flight can be uncomfortable, it rarely compromises the stability of the aircraft. The situation is quite different for small air vehicles that operate in urban canyons, around…
Animals are diverse in shape, but building a deformable shape model for a new species is not always possible due to the lack of 3D data. We present a method to capture new species using an articulated template and images of that species. In…
Automated animal behavior analysis relies on long-term, interpretable individual trajectories; however, multi-animal tracking in space science experimental videos remains highly challenging due to weak appearance cues, low-quality imaging,…
Inspired by the wake-surfing nature of animals, this study aims to understand the aerodynamic force variation on a wing surfing in an unsteady 2-D wake. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and force…
Hummingbirds and insects achieve outstanding flight performance by adapting their flapping motion to the flight requirements. Their wing kinematics can change from smooth flapping to highly dynamic waveforms, generating unsteady aerodynamic…
The flight characteristics of bats remarkably have been overlooked in aerial drone designs. Unlike other animals, bats leverage the manipulation of inertial dynamics to exhibit aerial flip turns when they perch. Inspired by this unique…
Hybrid modeling aims to augment traditional theory-driven models with machine learning components that learn unknown parameters, sub-models or correction terms from data. In this work, we build on FluxRGNN, a recently developed hybrid model…
This study delves into the flight behaviors of Budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to gain insights into their flight trajectories and movements. Using 3D reconstruction from stereo video camera recordings, we closely examine the velocity…
Flight on the two-dimensional air-water interface, with body weight supported by surface tension, is a unique locomotion strategy well adapted for the environmental niche on the surface of water. Although previously described in…
"Cicada: a Heavy but Agile Flyer" is a fluid dynamic video submitted to Gallery of Fluid Motion in APS-DFD 2011. Comparing to other insects, cicadas can generate much higher lift to overcome their large body weight. The hidden mechanism may…
Insects excel in trajectory and attitude handling during flight, yet the specific kinematic behaviours they use for maintaining stability in air disturbances are not fully understood. This study investigates the adaptive strategies of…