Related papers: Tethering and depth of submergence affect the swim…
The current study presents a systematic investigation of the locomotion performance of a swimmer with a wide range of parameter settings. Two-dimensional simulations with the immersed boundary method are employed for the fluid-structure…
Scombrid fishes and tuna are efficient swimmers capable of maximizing performance to escape predators and save energy during long journeys. A key aspect in achieving these goals is the flexibility of the tail, which the fish optimizes…
It is well known that tuna fish in the ocean can dynamically morph their median fins to achieve optimal hydrodynamic performance, e.g. linear acceleration and maneuverability. In this study, based on the previous studies about the median…
Fishes, cetaceans, and many other aquatic vertebrates undulate their bodies to propel themselves through water. Swimming requires an intricate interplay between sensing the environment, making decisions, controlling internal dynamics, and…
Median fins of fish-like swimmers play a crucial role in linear acceleration and maneuvering processes. However, few research focused on untethered robotic fish experiments. Imitating the behaviour of real tuna, we developed a free-swimming…
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…
While undulatory swimming of elongate limbless robots has been extensively studied in open hydrodynamic environments, less research has been focused on limbless locomotion in complex, cluttered aquatic environments. Motivated by the concept…
The performance of underwater crawling and adjustment of the body posture for underwater manipulating of the deep-sea crawling and swimming robot (DCSR) is directly influenced by the dynamic performance of the underwater mechanical legs…
Fish often travel in highly organized schools. One of the most quoted functions of these configurations is energy savings. Here, we verified the hypothesis and explored the mechanism through series of experiments on "schooling" robotic…
Motivated by the aim of understanding the effect of media heterogeneity on the swimming dynamics of flagellated bacteria, we study the rotation and swimming of rigid helices in dilute suspensions experimentally and theoretically. We first…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
Designing soft robots poses considerable challenges: automated design approaches may be particularly appealing in this field, as they promise to optimize complex multi-material machines with very little or no human intervention.…
Micro-organisms propel themselves in viscous environments by the periodic, nonreciprocal beating of slender appendages known as flagella. Active materials have been widely exploited to mimic this form of locomotion. However, the realization…
The vast majority of the ocean's volume remains unexplored, in part because of limitations on the vertical range and measurement duration of existing robotic platforms. In light of the accelerating rate of climate change impacts on the…
Fish locomotion emerges from a diversity of interactions among deformable structures, surrounding fluids and neuromuscular activations, i.e., fluid-structure interactions (FSI) controlled by fish's motor systems. Previous studies suggested…
Exploring bodies of water on their surface allows robots to efficiently communicate and harvest energy from the sun. On the water surface, however, robots often face highly unstructured environments, cluttered with plant matter, animals,…
In this work we developed a mathematical model and a simulation platform for a fish-inspired robotic template, namely Magnetic, Modular, Undulatory Robotics ($\mu$Bots). Through this platform, we systematically explored the effects of…
Many animals and robots move using undulatory motion of their bodies. When in close proximity undulatory motion can lead to novel collective behaviors such as gait synchronization, spatial reconfiguration, and clustering. Here we study the…
Flapping-based propulsive systems rely on fluid-structure interactions to produce thrust. At intermediate and high Reynolds numbers, vortex formation and organization in the wake of such systems are crucial for the generation of a…
Fish typically swim by periodic bending of their bodies. Bending seems to follow a universal rule; it occurs at about one-third from the posterior end of the fish body with a maximum bending angle of about $30^o$. However, the hydrodynamic…