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Developing deterministic surfaces relies on controlling the structure of the rubbing interface so that not only the surface is of optimized topography, but also is able to self-adjust its tribological behaviour according to the evolution of…
One way of controlling friction and associated energy losses is to engineer a deterministic structural pattern on the surface of the rubbing parts (i.e., texture engineering). Custom texturing enhances the quality of lubrication, reduces…
Deterministic surfaces are constructs of which profile, topography and textures are integral to the function of the system they enclose. They are designed to yield a predetermined rubbing response. Developing such entities relies on…
Laser Texturing is one of the leading technologies applied to modify surface topography. To date, however, a standardized procedure to generate deterministic textures is virtually non-existent. In nature, especially in squamata, there are…
Limbless terrestrial animals exhibit exceptional locomotor versatility and control, currently unmatched by engineered counterparts. Here, we introduce a computational framework that enables soft synthetic snakes to navigate unstructured,…
Design of precise functional surfaces is essential for many future applications. In the technological realm, the accumulated experience with the construction of such surfaces is not sufficient. Nature provides many examples of dynamic…
Although typically possessing four limbs and short bodies, lizards have evolved a diversity of body plans, from short-bodied and fully-limbed to elongate and nearly limbless. Such diversity in body morphology is hypothesized as adaptations…
Natural selection for terrestrial locomotion has yielded unifying patterns in the body shape of legged animals, often manifesting as scaling laws. One such pattern appears in the frontal aspect ratio. Smaller animals like insects typically…
Motivated by a possible convergence of terrestrial limbless locomotion strategies ultimately determined by interfacial effects, we show how both 3D gait alterations and locomotory adaptations to heterogeneous terrains can be understood…
Snakes are a remarkable evolutionary success story. Many snake-inspired robots have been proposed over the years. Soft robotic snakes (SRS) with their continuous and smooth bending capability better mimic their biological counterparts'…
Snake robots are inspired by the ability of biological snakes to move over rock, grass, leaves, soil, up trees, along pavement and more. Their ability to move in multiple distinct environments is due to their legless locomotion strategy,…
Dispersal is a well recognized driver of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and simultaneously an evolving trait. Dispersal evolution has traditionally been studied in single-species metapopulations so that it remains unclear how…
The sponge-like biomineralised calcite materials found in echinoderm skeletons are of interest in terms of both structure formation and biological function. Despite their crystalline atomic structure, they exhibit curved interfaces that…
Snakes can traverse almost all types of environments by bending their elongate bodies in 3-D to interact with the terrain. Similarly, a snake robot is a promising platform to perform critical tasks in various environments. Understanding how…
Constructing a surface that is an integral part of the function of tribosystems (deterministic surface) is an intriguing goal. Inspirations for such surfaces come from studying natural systems and deducing design rules. The major attraction…
Many snakes live in deserts, forests, and river valleys and traverse challenging 3-D terrain like rocks, felled trees, and rubble, with obstacles as large as themselves and variable surface properties. By contrast, apart from branch…
Limbless organisms such as snakes can navigate nearly all terrain. In particular, desert-dwelling sidewinder rattlesnakes (Crotalus cerastes) operate effectively on inclined granular media (such as sand dunes) that induce failure in…
Soft robotic snakes made of compliant materials can continuously deform their bodies and, therefore, mimic the biological snakes' flexible and agile locomotion gaits better than their rigid-bodied counterparts. Without wheel support, to…
Locomotion requires that an animal or robot be able to move itself forward farther than it moves backward in each gait cycle (formally, that it be able to break the symmetry of its interactions with the world). Previous work has established…
Snake moves across various terrains by bending its elongated body. Recent studies discovered that snakes can use vertical bending to traverse terrain of large height variation, such as horizontally oriented cylinders, a wedge (Jurestovsky,…