In the research and development of micro air vehicles, understanding and imitating the flight mechanism of insects presents a viable way of progressing forward. While research is being conducted on the flight mechanism of insects such as flies and dragonflies, research on beetles that can carry larger loads is limited. Here, we clarified the beetle midlegs' role in the attenuation and cessation of the wingbeat. We anatomically confirmed the connection between the midlegs and the elytra. We also further clarified which pair of legs are involved in the wingbeat attenuation mechanism, and lastly demonstrated free-flight control via remote leg muscle stimulation. Observation of multiple landings using a high-speed camera revealed that the wingbeat stopped immediately after their midlegs were lowered. Moreover, the action of lowering the midleg attenuated and often stopped the wingbeat. A miniature remote stimulation device (backpack) mountable on beetles was designed and utilized for the free-flight demonstration. Beetles in free flight were remotely induced into lowering (swing down) each leg pair via electrical stimulation, and they were found to lose significant altitude only when the midlegs were stimulated. Thus, the results of this study revealed that swinging down of the midlegs played a significant role in beetle wingbeat cessation. In the future, our findings on the wingbeat attenuation and cessation mechanism are expected to be helpful in designing bioinspired micro air vehicles.

One of the problems of traffic management in the allocation of lanes for ground public transport (GPT) is the organization of the right turn at regulated and unregulated intersections. High traffic intensity at a regulated intersection on the main carriageway and a significant proportion of right-turn traffic leads to numerous violations of the rules of passage when making a right turn. A method for assessing the throughput of a controlled intersection with a dedicated lane before joining is presented on the basis of a deterministic stochastic model.

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The purpose of designing dedicated lanes for ground public transport is to reduce travel time and create the most comfortable conditions for users (passengers) compared to personal cars or other modes of transport. One of the design problems is the presence of right turns and pedestrian crossings on the route, which can largely determine the speed of ground public transport vehicles that differ from the designed one. There are three typical design schemes for right turns in the presence of a dedicated lane: traffic light regulation of the organization of the right turn; uncontrolled intersection, free from possible delays; uncontrolled intersection in the organization of pedestrian traffic, which ultimately determines the time delays of the ground public transport when vehicles are located in a dedicated lane, waiting for an acceptable headway between pedestrians. Traffic rules of most countries of the world provide for the highest priority for pedestrian traffic, including on uncontrolled pedestrian crossings. This situation increases the level of safety and service for pedestrians, but at the same time reduces the level of service of road for traffic flow. The article presents a methodology for assessing the impact of pedestrians on vehicle delays at an unregulated intersection with a dedicated lane for vehicles based on a probabilistic model. The simulation results showed that the discrepancies between the values of the model and the observed delays do not exceed 22% when the pedestrian traffic intensity is less than 1500 ped/h. Based on the results obtained, recommendations are proposed to minimize the delay of vehicles at unregulated intersections, including the ground public transport vehicles on a dedicated lane.

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