Related papers: A minimal wake-vortex model explains formation fli…
Birds rely on active high-acceleration morphing and flapping to navigate complex airflows, but they can also maintain stable fixed-wing postures under persistent atmospheric disturbances. Here, we show that avian wings exhibit aerodynamic…
Soaring birds gain energy from stable ascending currents or shear. However, it remains unclear whether energy loss due to drag can be overcome by extracting work from transient turbulent fluctuations. We designed numerical simulations of…
Animal movements have been related to optimal foraging strategies where self-similar trajectories are central. Most of the experimental studies done so far have focused mainly on fitting statistical models to data in order to test for…
Dragonfly beats its wings independently, resulting in its superior maneuverability. Depending on the magnitude of phase difference between the fore- and hind-wings of dragonfly, the vortical structures and their interaction with wings…
This paper presents a geometric framework for analysis of dynamics of flapping wing micro aerial vehicles (FWMAV) which achieve locomotion in the special Euclidean group SE(3) using internal shape changes. We review the special structure of…
By introducing a predictive mechanism with small-world connections, we propose a new motion protocol for self-driven flocks. The small-world connections are implemented by randomly adding long-range interactions from the leader to a few…
Swarm robotic systems utilize collective behaviour to achieve goals that might be too complex for a lone entity, but become attainable with localized communication and collective decision making. In this paper, a behaviour-based distributed…
Collective animal movements produce spectacular natural phenomena that arise from simple local interactions among group members. Flocks of homing pigeons, Columba livia, provide a useful model for the study of collective motion and decision…
Collective behaviors such as swarming and flocking emerge from simple, decentralized interactions in biological systems. Existing models, such as Vicsek and Cucker-Smale, lack collision avoidance, whereas the Olfati-Saber model imposes…
Birds employ rapid pitch-up motions for different purposes: perching birds use this motion to decelerate and come to a complete stop while hunting birds, like bald eagles, employ it to catch prey and swiftly fly away. Motivated by these…
Wings of flying animals can not only generate lift and control torques but also can sense their surroundings. Such dual functions of sensing and actuation coupled in one element are particularly useful for small sized bio-inspired robotic…
The interaction of trailing and leading vortex structures in low Reynolds number forced (varicose) jet with coflow is studied using Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS), where we report the dynamics of these vortices for a range of varying…
Using a flapping robot in a wind tunnel, we show that flapping faster amplifies existing longitudinal static stability (focusing on the pitch stiffness) and can even make an unstable flier stable. We show that stability for a flapper is not…
This paper addresses the problem of bearing leader-follower formation control in three-dimensional space by exploring the persistence of excitation (PE) of the desired formation. Using only bearing and relative velocity measurements,…
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…
Aeroelastic structures, from insect wings to wind turbine blades, experience transient unsteady aerodynamic loads that are coupled to their motion. Effective real-time control of flexible structures relies on accurate and efficient…
This paper presents a novel algorithm to plan energy-efficient trajectories for autonomous ornithopters. In general, trajectory optimization is quite a relevant problem for practical applications with \emph{Unmanned Aerial Vehicles} (UAVs).…
The autonomous operation of flexible-wing aircraft is technically challenging and has never been presented within literature. The lack of an exact modeling framework is due to the complex nonlinear aerodynamic relationships governed by the…
Fluid dynamics, and flight in particular, is a domain where organisms challenge our understanding of its physics. Integrating the current knowledge of animal flight, we propose to revisit the use of live animals to study physical phenomena.…
Turbulence grounds aircraft and combating it in flight requires energy, yet volant wildlife fly effortlessly even on windy days. The nature of the interactions between soaring birds and transient turbulent gusts is not clear, especially…