Bioinspiration & Biomimetics最新文献

Satellite telemetry is widely used to study the movements of marine mammals, but current attachment methods for seals typically rely on epoxy adhesives, which pose risks to animal welfare and the marine environment. This study presents a biomimetic, adhesive-free attachment system inspired by the seal louseEchinophthirius horridus, an ectoparasite capable of maintaining a strong grip on seal fur in aquatic conditions. A top-down biomimetic approach was used to abstract key functional principles from the louse's claw morphology and cuticular anchoring structures. These biological features informed the development of a 3D-printed comb-clamp prototype, termed 'TACS' (Transmitter Attachment Clamp[s]), designed specifically for the hair structure of harbour seals. Microscopy and x-ray microtomography revealed morphological traits such as interlocking setae, directional grooves, and a specialised euplantula, which were functionally integrated into the prototype. Tensile tests on tanned seal fur demonstrated mean maximum retention forces of 4.58 N under dry conditions and 2.42 N under wet conditions. A proof-of-concept trial on a live harbour seal showed successful attachment for up to 50 min, without signs of distress or fur damage. The TACS system fulfilled key design criteria: rapid and reversible application, low material weight (<20 g), and strong mechanical retention without the use of adhesives. This study demonstrates the potential of biologically inspired design to provide an environmentally responsible alternative to conventional tagging methods and highlights the relevance ofE. horridusas a functional model for bioinspired gripping systems in marine applications.

The mechanism of wake formation behind two staggered in-phase pitching foils is numerically investigated over a range of Strouhal numbers (0.15

With the rapid advancements in automation and soft robotics, the exploration of mobile robots for applications in complex environments is increasingly deepening. This paper presents a novel dual soft arm mobile robot (DSAMR), whose design integrates advanced soft robotics technologies with biomimetic design inspired by human arms, aiming to achieve efficient obstacle avoidance and object manipulation. The robot employs Bubble Artificial Muscle Arms (BAMAs) for locomotion, enabling flexible movements such as forward, backward, and turning motions; it also integrates TacTip (tactile fingertip), a biomimetic sensor that mimics the tactile structure of human fingertips, to achieve real-time perception. BAMAs and TacTip collaborate to achieve the integration of perception and operation like a human hand, enabling the system to accurately detect obstacles and manipulate objects, including typical delicate items such as a paper towel roll and a pen, with the maximum capacity to grasp objects weighing up to 148.8 g. Experiments have demonstrated that a single inflation-deflation cycle of the BAMAs enables the DSAMR to turn right by 35.5° and left by 28.3°, and successfully allows the DSAMR to recognize obstacles and turn to avoid them. The experimental results indicate that the DSAMR can operate effectively in dynamic environments, with excellent stability and obstacle avoidance capabilities. This paper discusses the design details of BAMA actuators, steering engines, and TacTip, as well as their integration into the robot's motion and sensing systems. The findings emphasize the DSAMR's potential applications in industrial automation, particularly in the context of Industry 4.0. Finally, the study summarizes optimization strategies and future improvement directions to enhance the robot's operational efficiency, including onboard power integration and advanced obstacle recognition technologies.

Research on dolphins dates back nearly 90 years to the well-known Gray's Paradox, which proposed that dolphins are capable of swimming at speeds that seemingly exceed their energetic limits. Inspired by microvibrations observed on dolphin skin, longitudinal micro-ultrasonic waves (LMUWs)-a form of dynamic skin vibration-have been shown to significantly reduce drag. This finding motivated our investigation into how these vibrations affect swimming performance under dolphin-like, tail-driven propulsion. In this study, we develop a conceptual two-dimensional computational fluid dynamics model that integrates dynamic skin microvibrations with tail fluke propulsion to systematically explore dolphin swimming dynamics. Two modes of skin vibration are examined: downstream-traveling LMUW (DTLMUW) and upstream-traveling LMUW (UTLMUW). The results demonstrate that DTLMUW enhances net thrust and accelerates swimming, whereas its cessation leads to a speed reduction. Conversely, UTLMUW causes deceleration during application but results in a speed increase once stopped. Therefore, to achieve net acceleration, a longer duration of DTLMUW but a shorter UTLMUW period is most effective. This approach aligns with the optimal interaction between skin motion and the surrounding flow. Moreover, once skin vibrations cease, the forces acting on the model quickly return to their non-vibrating baseline, allowing tail-driven propulsion to maintain the speed gains induced by LMUWs. As the frequency of vibration pulses increases, the acceleration effect becomes cumulative, further boosting overall performance. This study provides new insights into the mechanisms behind dolphins' high-speed swimming and offers valuable guidance for the design and optimization of bioinspired propulsion systems.

Salps are underwater invertebrates considered to be among the world's most energy-efficient examples of jet propulsion. They can swim as solitary individuals or as physically connected colonies, coordinating their jets to produce collective movement. Inspired by salps, we developed the SALP (Salp-inspired Approach to Low-energy Propulsion) system, where individual SALP robots can be physically connected into a multi-SALP group, and we investigate the coupled effects of physical arrangement and jet coordination on the swimming performance and energy efficiency of a two-SALP system. We conduct free swimming tests to evaluate locomotion performance metrics and find that the two-SALP system, when properly coordinated, is able to swim with 15.7% higher speed and 11.3% lower cost of transport than the single SALP. Supporting flow characterization experiments using particle image velocimetry reveal vortex ring structures emanating from robot SALP nozzles. The data suggest that propulsion performance is affected by the spatial arrangement of the vortex ring structure. In particular, we find that SALP systems that produce a parallel vortex ring arrangement produce less vortex circulation and impulse than an in-series vortex ring arrangement. Overall, the SALP system is a useful platform for exploring salp-inspired multi-jet locomotion strategies, enabling decoupling of physical and control parameters to expose underlying locomotion physics in ways that are difficult with the biological salp. These insights advance our understanding of multi-jet locomotion and support the development of more energy-efficient jet-propelled underwater robots in the future.

Energy efficiency is one of the main concerns in the design of embedded circuits, especially considering the ever-growing amount of portable devices produced for specialized to everyday life applications. Taking inspiration from neuronal processes in the brain, neuromorphic systems are seen as promising solutions to this concern. Great advances in all fields led to the production of numerous hardware implementations, digital or mixed-signal for the most part. While digital systems showcase high accuracy performances and an advanced technological maturity, they fail to reach the ultra-low power (ULP) consumptions of emerging technologies or fully analog implementations due to generally non-dedicated chips and bulky hardware. In this work, we designed and implemented a bioinspired analog demonstrator of inter-pulse delay detection on standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor in the subthreshold operation mode. Relying on the temporal pattern recognition mechanism in female field crickets, our circuit reach on average 750 pW of total power consumption under probes during detection on real-world recordings of male crickets calling song. The circuit was evaluated in quiet, noisy, and multi-source environments, demonstrating strong detection performances given its sparse architecture and ULP consumption.

Sea turtle hatchlings display maneuvering capabilities across diverse aquatic and coastal terrains. While turning behavior is crucial in aquatic environments, it is equally vital for terrestrial locomotion by hatchlings that must quickly navigate obstacle-rich terrain on their way to the sea. This study introduces a robotic prototype that emulates the turning strategies of juvenile sea turtles to optimize turning rate and energy consumption across diverse terrestrial surfaces. The research investigates the rotational displacement capabilities of a bioinspired robot across five distinct gait configurations: one involving all flippers in a unique pattern, and four employing reduced flipper combinations, including front, diagonal, back, and single flippers. We investigated the robot's turning capabilities on diverse granular and compliant media, including four specified rock sizes, a consistent foam platform, and dry sand. Comparative analyses were conducted using rigid and soft flipper designs. Key locomotion features, including roll, pitch, yaw, and lift height, were quantified for each configuration. The results reveal significant differences in rotational behavior across terrains and gait styles, highlighting the interplay between flipper design, gait strategy, and environmental adaptability. This research advances the understanding of bioinspired robotics for applications in complex and variable environments.

Achieving robust and energy-efficient navigation in unknown fluid environments remains a key challenge for bioinspired underwater robots. In this study, we develop a reinforcement learning-based control framework that enables a fish-like swimmer to autonomously acquire effective navigation strategies within a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics environment. By shaping the reward function to favor energy efficiency, the agent spontaneously discovers different locomotion patterns, ranging from continuous bursting to burst-and-coast gaits, all without prior knowledge of fluid mechanics. Although the agent is trained in a quiescent fluid environment, the learned swimming policies are generalized well in various navigation tasks and remain robust under complex flow perturbations, including uniform currents and unsteady vortex wakes. In all test scenarios, the agent achieves a 100%navigation success rate. These findings highlight the potential of integrating physics-based simulation with learning-based control strategy to advance the design of adaptive, efficient, and resilient aquatic robots inspired by biological swimmers.

Urban noise pollution is an increasingly pressing concern, driven by rapid infrastructural development and evolving environmental regulations. Among its most significant sources is the aeroacoustic emission from mechanical ventilation systems, where fan noise, comprising both tonal and broadband components, can be particularly disruptive. Inspired by the silent flight of owls, this study investigates the potential of trailing-edge serrations as a passive noise-reduction strategy for fan blades. A combined numerical and experimental approach is adopted. The acoustic performance is predicted using a hybrid methodology that couples large eddy simulations (LES) of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in their vorticity formulation with acoustic analogy models to capture far-field noise characteristics. A sensitivity study examines the influence of key geometrical parameters, specifically the number of serrations and the sawtooth ratio, defined in terms of pitch and depth. Results show that adjustments to these parameters allow for noticeable noise reductions, with improvements reaching up to 5 decibels. Although analyses are conducted at constant rotational speed, only marginal reductions in thrust and drag are observed, with aerodynamic efficiency remaining essentially unchanged. Flow analysis reveals that serrations enhance spanwise flow coherence, contributing to the passive stabilisation of turbulence near the trailing edge and blade tip. Experimental tests at varying rotational speeds support and extend the numerical findings, enabling a broader assessment across operating conditions. A multi-criteria evaluation framework is proposed to identify optimal serration configurations. These results provide valuable insights into bioinspired noise-control strategies and offer a foundation for the development of predictive tools for the design of next-generation low-noise fan systems.

Biomimetics is a powerful tool for problem solving in design and engineering. However, most biomimetic research is limited in the range of biological models considered, for instance with a frequent bias towards vertebrate animals. Diversifying the list of possible models increases the likelihood of discovering innovative solutions to a given problem and can overcome the limitations of sometimes imperfect design in biology. In this tutorial, we review key biology concepts that can assist students and practitioners of biomimetics in diversifying their list of biological models by expanding across evolutionary time and ecological space. First, we draw on evolutionary biology, particularly independent origins of a trait or function, which increases the chance of finding unique mechanisms underlying a function of interest. Second, we discuss core concepts from ecology for sampling across geographical space, considering different biomes or ecoregions where evolution may have played out in different ways to solve similar ecological issues. We show how to distill a biomimetic problem into abiotic and biotic components that have analogies in habitats and biomes across the globe. Finally, we consider both ecological and evolutionary processes jointly. Throughout this tutorial, we review useful and accessible tools, especially online databases, for putting these approaches into practice, even for a non-biologist. We hope to make the biomimetic approach more accessible and impactful by reviewing tools for sampling a broader range of potential biological models for a given biomimetic problem.