Biomechanics and biomimetics in insect-inspired flight systems

H, Liu; Ravi, Sridhar; Kolomenskiy, Dmitry; Tanaka, Hiroto

doi:10.1098/rstb.2015.0390

Cited by 111 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…[3][4][5]) have long since served as inspiration for the development of artificial systems (e.g. [6][7][8]). The result of this pluridisciplinary appeal is that literature abounds over an ample spectrum of approaches bounded by biology, physics and engineering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the diverse roles of fluid dynamic drag in animal swimming and flying

Godoy-Diana¹,

Thiria²

2018

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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Questions of energy dissipation or friction appear immediately when addressing the problem of a body moving in a fluid. For the most simple problems, involving a constant steady propulsive force on the body, a straightforward relation can be established balancing this driving force with a skin friction or form drag, depending on the Reynolds number and body geometry. This elementary relation closes the full dynamical problem and sets, for instance, average cruising velocity or energy cost. In the case of finite-sized and time-deformable bodies though, such as flapping flyers or undulatory swimmers, the comprehension of driving/dissipation interactions is not straightforward. The intrinsic unsteadiness of the flapping and deforming animal bodies complicates the usual application of classical fluid dynamic forces balance. One of the complications is because the shape of the body is indeed changing in time, accelerating and decelerating perpetually, but also because the role of drag (more specifically the role of the local drag) has two different facets, contributing at the same time to global dissipation and to driving forces. This causes situations where a strong drag is not necessarily equivalent to inefficient systems. A lot of living systems are precisely using strong sources of drag to optimize their performance. In addition to revisiting classical results under the light of recent research on these questions, we discuss in this review the crucial role of drag from another point of view that concerns the fluid-structure interaction problem of animal locomotion. We consider, in particular, the dynamic subtleties brought by the quadratic drag that resists transverse motions of a flexible body or appendage performing complex kinematics, such as the phase dynamics of a flexible flapping wing, the propagative nature of the bending wave in undulatory swimmers, or the surprising relevance of drag-based resistive thrust in inertial swimmers.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the diverse roles of fluid dynamic drag in animal swimming and flying

Godoy-Diana¹,

Thiria²

2018

J. R. Soc. Interface.

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“…Ultimately, a greater understanding of how animals respond to airflows should allow researchers to predict flight paths, or aspects of them, over a range of scales, which has clear implications for conservation and management [65]. UAV engineers are also interested in animal responses to airflows, including the sensory mechanisms that underpin flow detection, as bioinspiration lies at the heart of much UAV design and development [61]. Another fundamental driver of research into animal flight, which thankfully shows no signs of diminishing, is the sheer delight in watching animals move through a medium in ways that are largely inaccessible to us.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Liu et al [61] review how robotics engineers have studied animal flight in general to understand how animals manoeuvre through the aerial environment, and regain flight control following a perturbation. This is an active area of research for both biologists and engineers, and one that is particularly pertinent for micro air vehicles (MAVs)-insect-and bird-sized drones, with maximal dimensions of 15 cm and speeds of around 10 m s 21 , which experience flight control challenges.…”

Section: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Bio-inspirationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight

Shepard

Ross

Portugal

2016

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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One contribution of 17 to a theme issue 'Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight'. One of the defining features of the aerial environment is its variability; air is almost never still. This has profound consequences for flying animals, affecting their flight stability, speed selection, energy expenditure and choice of flight path. All these factors have important implications for the ecology of flying animals, and the ecosystems they interact with, as well as providing bio-inspiration for the development of unmanned aerial vehicles. In this introduction, we touch on the factors that drive the variability in airflows, the scales of variability and the degree to which given airflows may be predictable. We then summarize how papers in this volume advance our understanding of the sensory, biomechanical, physiological and behavioural responses of animals to air flows. Overall, this provides insight into how flying animals can be so successful in this most fickle of environments.This article is part of the themed issue 'Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight'.

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“…While the natural world evolves, its processes provides an extensive source of inspiration for creating comprehensive models of artificial systems that can mimic certain functions of their counterparts in nature (Manzanera & Smith, 2015). The bioinspired design paradigm (Kovač, 2014) and perching principles (Liu, Ravi, Kolomenskiy, & Tanaka, 2016;Roderick, Cutkosky, & Lentink, 2017) provide cross-disciplinary approaches to developing new devices by mimicking the natural world in the way of adopting concepts and principles in nature to solve engineering challenges.…”

Section: Brief Review On Biological Principles During Landing Maneumentioning

confidence: 99%

Bioinspired design of a landing system with soft shock absorbers for autonomous aerial robots

Zhang

Chermprayong

Tzoumanikas

et al. 2018

Journal of Field Robotics

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One of the main challenges for autonomous aerial robots is to land safely on a target position on varied surface structures in real‐world applications. Most of current aerial robots (especially multirotors) use only rigid landing gears, which limit the adaptability to environments and can cause damage to the sensitive cameras and other electronics onboard. This paper presents a bioinpsired landing system for autonomous aerial robots, built on the inspire–abstract–implement design paradigm and an additive manufacturing process for soft thermoplastic materials. This novel landing system consists of 3D printable Sarrus shock absorbers and soft landing pads which are integrated with an one‐degree‐of‐freedom actuation mechanism. Both designs of the Sarrus shock absorber and the soft landing pad are analyzed via finite element analysis, and are characterized with dynamic mechanical measurements. The landing system with 3D printed soft components is characterized by completing landing tests on flat, convex, and concave steel structures and grassy field in a total of 60 times at different speeds between 1 and 2 m/s. The adaptability and shock absorption capacity of the proposed landing system is then evaluated and benchmarked against rigid legs. It reveals that the system is able to adapt to varied surface structures and reduce impact force by 540N at maximum. The bioinspired landing strategy presented in this paper opens a promising avenue in Aerial Biorobotics, where a cross‐disciplinary approach in vehicle control and navigation is combined with soft technologies, enabled with adaptive morphology.

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Biomechanics and biomimetics in insect-inspired flight systems

Cited by 111 publications

References 94 publications

On the diverse roles of fluid dynamic drag in animal swimming and flying

On the diverse roles of fluid dynamic drag in animal swimming and flying

Moving in a moving medium: new perspectives on flight

Bioinspired design of a landing system with soft shock absorbers for autonomous aerial robots

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