Vortex phase matching as a strategy for schooling in robots and in fish

Li, Liang; Nagy, Máté; Graving, Jacob M.; Bak-Coleman, Joseph; Xie, Guangming; Couzin, Iain D.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19086-0

Cited by 139 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…This yields a downwards, high-velocity jet, which decreases the pressure on the follower's lower surface, thus explaining the lower P f required with respect to P s observed in figure 7c. This interaction is in agreement with the recently published work of Li et al (2020), who reported that a following fish in tandem saved energy when its tail motion matches the direction of the induced velocity of the wake's VRs.…”

Section: Flow Interaction Mechanismssupporting

confidence: 92%

Three-dimensional effects on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings in tandem configuration

Arranz

Flores

García-Villalba

2020

Journal of Fluids and Structures

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Section: Flow Interaction Mechanismssupporting

confidence: 92%

Three-dimensional effects on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings in tandem configuration

Arranz

Flores

García-Villalba

2020

Journal of Fluids and Structures

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“…To evaluate the hydrodynamic interactions of swimming in formation, we developed a method to place two robotic fish side-by-side at 0.33 BL. The formation and distance have been suggested as a configuration that could allow real fish, and experimental physical models of fish-like swimming, to save energy when in a group [12,14,16,41]. Because of the turbulence and backflow, it is difficult to dynamically control and keep a stable formation between the two robots.…”

Section: (A) Experimental Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Fish likely swim together to reap many benefits of congregation, which include reduced predation risk [4], increased foraging efficiency [5] and improved environmental sensing capabilities [6]. It has also been hypothesized that, from a biophysical standpoint, swimming in schools may benefit individuals energetically, since it could allow them to extract power from the vortices shed by their neighbours [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. However, by virtue of swimming in close proximity to a conspecific, the resulting fluid mechanic interactions between the adjacent fish are likely to result in a different flow structure from that in solitary swimming [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using a robotic platform to study the influence of relative tailbeat phase on the energetic costs of side-by-side swimming in fish

Ravi

Xie

et al. 2021

Proc. R. Soc. A.

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A potential benefit of swimming together in coordinated schools is to allow fish to extract energy from vortices shed by their neighbours, thus reducing the costs of locomotion. This hypothesis has been very hard to test in real fish schools, and it has proven very difficult to replicate the complex hydrodynamics at relevant Reynolds numbers using computational simulations. A complementary approach, and the one we adopt here, is to develop and analyse the performance of biomimetic autonomous robotic models that capture the salient kinematics of fish-like swimming, and also interact via hydrodynamic forces. We developed bio-inspired robotic fish which perform sub-carangiform locomotion, and measured the speed and power consumption of robots when swimming in isolation and when swimming side-by-side in pairs. We found that swimming side-by-side confers a substantial increase in both the speed and efficiency of locomotion of both fish regardless of the relative phase relationship of their body undulations. However, we also find that each individual can slightly increase their own power efficiency if they change relative tailbeat phase by approximately 0.25 π with respect to, and at the energetic expense of, their neighbour. This suggests the possibility of a competitive game-theoretic dynamic between individuals in swimming groups. Our results also demonstrate the potential applicability of our platform, and provide a natural connection between the biology and robotics of collective motion.

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“…Collective movements of animal groups are critical for species survival 1 . They provide protection from predation 2,3 , improve foraging 4,5 , and help with better energy utilization 6,7 . Presumably, the wide variety of group behaviors that characterize different species reflect underlying genetic changes, but to identify the precise role that individual genes play in controlling behavior, we need to first understand the underlying sensorimotor algorithms implemented by individual animals that give rise to emergent collective behavioral patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective behavior emerges from genetically controlled simple behavioral motifs in zebrafish

Aspiras

Harpaz

Chambule

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Coordinated movement of animal groups is essential to species survival. It is not clear whether there are simple interactions among the individuals that account for group behaviors, nor when they arise during development. Zebrafish at the early larval stage do not manifest obvious tendencies to form groups, but we find here that they have already established mechanisms to regulate proximity and alignment with respect to their neighbors, which are the two key ingredients of shoaling and schooling. Specifically, we show that two basic reflexes are sufficient to explain a large part of emerging collective behaviors. First, young larvae repel away from regions of high visual clutter, leading to a dispersal of the group. At later developmental stages, this dispersal reflex shifts to attraction and aggregation behaviors. Second, larvae display a strong tendency to move along with whole field motion stimuli, a well-described behavior known as the optomotor reflex (OMR). When applied to individuals swimming within a group, this reflex leads to an emergence of mutual alignment between close neighbors and induces collective motion of the whole group. The combined developmental maturation of both reflexes can then explain emergent shoaling and schooling behavior. In order to probe the link between single genetic mutations and emergent collective motion, we select fish with mutations in genes orthologous to those associated with human behavioral disorders and find that these mutations affect the primitive visuomotor behaviors at a very young age and persist over development. We then use model simulations to show that the phenotypic manifestations of these mutations are predictive of changes in the emergent collective behaviors of mutant animals. Indeed, models based solely on these two primitive motor reflexes can synergistically account for a large fraction of the distinctive emergent group behaviors across ages and genetic backgrounds. Our results indicate that complex interactions among individuals in a group are built upon genetically defined primitive sensorimotor "motifs", which are evident even in young larvae at a time when the nervous system is far less complex and more directly accessible to detailed analysis.

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Vortex phase matching as a strategy for schooling in robots and in fish

Cited by 139 publications

References 54 publications

Three-dimensional effects on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings in tandem configuration

Three-dimensional effects on the aerodynamic performance of flapping wings in tandem configuration

Using a robotic platform to study the influence of relative tailbeat phase on the energetic costs of side-by-side swimming in fish

Collective behavior emerges from genetically controlled simple behavioral motifs in zebrafish

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