Related papers: Modal analysis and optimization of swimming active…
Locomotion is typically studied either in continuous media where bodies and legs experience forces generated by the flowing medium, or on solid substrates dominated by friction. In the former, centralized coordination is believed to…
We developed a mechanical model of spermatozoal swimming in bulk suspensions. We traced the spatiotemporal elastohydrodynamic interactions and found that spermatozoa engaged in self-organisation: flagellar undulatory motion generated a…
For decades, people have been seeking for fishlike flapping motions that can realize underwater propulsion with low energy cost. Complexity of the nonstationary flow field around the flapping body makes this problem very difficult. In…
We review recent work on active colloids or swimmers, such as self-propelled microorganisms, phoretic colloidal particles, and artificial micro-robotic systems, moving in fluid-like environments. These environments can be water-like and…
We present a continuum level analytical model of a droplet of active contractile fluid consisting of filaments and motors. We calculate the steady state flows that result from a splayed polarisation of the filaments. We account for the…
Artificial bacteria flagella (ABFs) are magnetic helical micro-swimmers that can be remotely controlled via a uniform, rotating magnetic field. Previous studies have used the heterogeneous response of microswimmers to external magnetic…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…
The motion of a rotating helical body in a viscoelastic fluid is considered. In the case of force-free swimming, the introduction of viscoelasticity can either enhance or retard the swimming speed and locomotive efficiency, depending on the…
When tiny soft ferromagnetic particles are placed along a liquid interface and exposed to a vertical magnetic field, the balance between capillary attraction and magnetic repulsion leads to self-organization into well-defined patterns.…
We present an automated procedure for the design of optimal actuation for flagellar magnetic microswimmers based on numerical optimization. Using this method, a new magnetic actuation method is provided which allows these devices to swim…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
Microrobots have the potential to impact many areas such as microsurgery, micromanipulation and minimally invasive sensing. Due to their small size, microrobots swim in a regime that is governed by low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. In this…
Typical bodily and environmental fluids encountered by biological swimmers consist of dissolved macromolecules such as proteins and polymers, often rendering them non Newtonian. To mimic such scenarios, we investigate the motion of swimming…
We develop a maximum likelihood method to infer relevant physical properties of elongated active particles. Using individual trajectories of advected swimmers as input, we are able to accurately determine their rotational diffusion…
Many biological microorganisms and artificial microswimmers react to external cues of environmental gradients by changing their swimming directions. We study here the behavior of eukarytic flagellated microswimmers in linear viscosity…
The emerging field of self-driven active particles in fluid environments has recently created significant interest in the biophysics and bioengineering communities owing to their promising future biomedical and technological applications.…
Motivated by the experimental ability to produce monodisperse particles in microfluidic devices, we study theoretically the hydrodynamic stability of driven and active crystals. We first recall the theoretical tools allowing to quantify the…
Geometric confinements are frequently encountered in the biological world and strongly affect the stability, topology, and transport properties of active suspensions in viscous flow. Based on a far-field analytical model, the…
The complex formations exhibited by schooling fish have long been the object of fascination for biologists and physicists. However, the physical and sensory mechanisms leading to organized collective behavior remain elusive. On the physical…
Biological microswimmers are known to navigate upstream of an external flow (positive rheotaxis) in trajectories ranging from linear, spiral to oscillatory. Such rheotaxis stems from the interplay between the motion and complex shapes of…