Journal of Bionic Engineering最新文献

Inspired by bacterial motility mechanisms, Magnetic Helical Miniature Robots (MHMRs) exhibit promising applications in biomedical fields due to their efficient locomotion and compatibility with biological tissues. In this review, we systematically survey the basics of MHMRs, from propulsion mechanism, magnetization and control methods to biomedical applications, aiming to provide readers with an easily understandable overview and fundamental knowledge on implementing MHMRs. The MHMRs are actuated by rotating magnetic fields, achieving steering and rotation through magnetic torque, and converting rotation into forward motion through the helical structure. Magnetization methods for MHMRs are reviewed into three types: attaching magnets, magnetic coatings, and magnetic powder doping. Additionally, this review discusses the control methods for MHMRs, covering imaging techniques, path tracking control—including classical control algorithms and increasingly popular learning-based methods, and swarm control. Subsequently, a comprehensive survey is conducted on the biomedical applications of MHMRs in the treatment of vascular diseases, drug delivery, cell delivery, and their integration with catheters. We finally provide a perspective about future challenges in MHMR research, including enhancing functional design capabilities, developing swarm-assisted independent control mechanisms, refining in vivo imaging techniques, and ensuring robust biocompatibility for safe medical use.

Inspired by the aquatic-adapted pit structures of the Cybister beetles that enable high-speed swimming, this study employs warp-knitted technology to fabricate drag-reduction swimwear textiles. Eight distinct fabric morphologies were produced, and a self-developed high-precision dynamic drag measurement device was used to systematically analyze the mechanisms underlying the drag-reduction performance of these biomimetic pit structures. The device incorporates a servomotor, ball screw linkage, and high-precision tension sensor, enabling real-time and accurate detection of fluid drag forces. It effectively overcomes the limitations of traditional indirect measurement methods, including dynamic response lag and insufficient accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the hydrophobic small-pit fabric (4^#) achieves an 84% drag reduction at 400 mm/s, outperforming the control sample (warp-knitted fabric 7^#). This significant reduction is attributed to the Cassie state established on the hydrophobic surface, which substantially decreases viscous drag and the microvortices generated by the pit structures, which delay flow separation and effectively minimize pressure drag. Furthermore, small-pit fabrics demonstrate a drag reduction rate 26% to 50% higher than that of large-pit structures, highlighting the critical importance of matching the pit scale to the thickness of the near-wall viscous sublayer for optimal drag reduction. This study establishes a theoretical foundation for the biomimetic design of high-performance drag-reduction swimsuits. The developed drag-measuring device also provides a standardized experimental platform for hydrodynamic studies of flexible materials, supporting a shift from empirical design methodologies to theory-driven approaches in drag-reduction technology and exhibiting significant potential for future advancements.

Self-healing (SH) polymer composites are a transformative achievement in polymer material technology that offers significant potential to extend the lifespan and reliability of materials. This work presents a novel approach to developing a hybrid natural-synthetic reinforced polymer composite with SH behavior using urea-free, non-toxic, environment-friendly material encapsulating resin, and hardener within a multicavity microcapsule (MC). This MC offers multiple healing because of its multicavity structure. These Xerogel MCs are integrated into hybrid bamboo/recycled glass fiber reinforced epoxy composite (25 wt% and 40 wt%) and were evaluated for their flexural strength, healing efficiency, moisture absorption, and thermal behavior. The results demonstrated that the composite containing 40 wt% exhibited the highest initial flexural strength and modulus retention after multiple healing cycles, approaching 80.67% and 61.34% respectively at 1st and 2nd cycles of healing efficiency. The behavior of self-healing hybrid composites (SHHC) in different environmental conditions was also investigated. Thermal Analysis TGA and DTA done on hybrid and other SH composites. Scanning electron microscopy shows the surface morphology of Xerogel MCs before and after damage, composite fractured surface, and how Healing Agent (HA) gets released and acquires surface after fracture. To ensure functional groups and chemical reactions between each component of the composite, FTIR analysis confirmed the successful encapsulation of HA inside MC.

Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), a key biomarker for long-term glucose regulation, is essential for diagnosing and managing diabetes mellitus. However, conventional HbA1c detection methods often suffer from limited sensitivity, narrow detection ranges, slow response times, and poor long-term stability. In this study, we developed a high-performance amperometric biosensor for the selective detection of Fructosyl Valine (FV), a model compound for HbA1c, by immobilizing Fructosyl Amino Acid Oxidase (FAAO) onto a glassy carbon electrode modified with electrospun polyaniline/polyindole-Mn₂O₃ nanofibers. Operating at an applied potential of 0.27 V versus Ag/AgCl, the biosensor achieved a rapid detection time of 2 s for FV concentrations up to 50 µM, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. Under optimized conditions (pH 7.0 and 35 °C), the biosensor exhibited a wide linear detection range from 0.1 to 3 mM and a high sensitivity of 38.42 µA/mM. Importantly, the sensor retained approximately 70% of its initial activity after 193 days of storage at 4 °C, demonstrating excellent long-term stability. These results suggest that the FAAO/polyaniline/polyindole-Mn₂O₃ nanocomposite-based biosensor offers a promising platform for sensitive, rapid, and durable detection of HbA1c, providing significant potential for improving diabetes monitoring and management.

This paper presents a fully integrated platform that leverages hardware, software, and specially formulated O/W emulsions to provide localized mechanical stimuli for manipulating cellular behaviors. The system comprises a hexapole magnetic tweezer device, position-based current calculation software, and biocompatible micro-robots embedded with magnetic microbeads for vibration-driven force generation. High-permeability materials in the tweezer tips, combined with fast-response current regulators, enable rapid and precise force control, ensuring uniform and continuous mechanical stimuli in the pico-newton range. Closed-loop control algorithms automatically adjust coil currents based on the micro-robot’s position, thereby compensating for potential hysteresis and optimizing system stability. Experimental results demonstrate stable operation at frequencies up to 4 Hz, with a theoretical possibility of extending to 8 Hz under a 2 A current, delivering mean forces around 20 pN at 1 Hz with a 57 μm emulsion. Additionally, the platform allows fine-tuning of forces by altering emulsion size or bead concentrations, thereby providing researchers with a versatile approach to study apoptosis, proliferation, and the other mechanotransduction pathways. The biodegradable and cell-friendly emulsion serves as a protective membrane for the magnetic microbeads while effectively mimicking the mechanical properties of living cells. By bridging the gap between precise motion control and continuous vibrational force application, this novel platform offers a promising tool for advancing targeted cellular studies, fostering insights into tissue engineering, and improving cancer therapies.

This paper proposes 2.5-dimensional polymer micromachined insect-mimetic wings based on a fluid-structure interaction (FSI) design concept that enables natural deformations like cambering and pitching under fluid forces. Instead of directly employing an analysis for the FSI, an iterative structural Design Window (DW) search is used to reduce the computational cost significantly. A DW search using the iterative method refines the initial design by addressing fabrication challenges and tuning it to meet manufacturability constraints. The successful fabrication and demonstration of the final design solution for a wing demonstrates the effectiveness of the iterative DW search based on the FSI design concept. Furthermore, a pixel model is introduced to convert an unstructured to a structured mesh for the FSI analysis to further reduce the computational cost. The camber and pitching error between the unstructured and structured meshes is minimized to achieve insect-like aerodynamic performance by adjusting the elastic moduli of center and root veins. Finally, an analysis for the FSI is conducted, based on the parameters obtained from the pixel model to evaluate the flight performance on the basis of the lift, camber, and pitching required by an actual insect to maneuver and hover.

In this paper, we proposed a compact, lightweight flapping actuation mechanism and a flight control mechanism for a twin-winged, tailless, hover-capable flapping robot named HiFly-Hummingbird, which has a total mass of 14.4 g and a wingspan of 18.8 cm. A four-bar linkage and gears set were adopted to convert the rotation motion of DC motor into flapping oscillation and amplify the flapping amplitude. As well as, a parallel coupled flight control mechanism was designed to implement the aerodynamic moments generation strategies. The proposed flapping actuation mechanism, with a mass of 2.95 g, has been validated to achieve a 168° amplitude at a frequency of 26 Hz with an asymmetrical stroke deviation of 3.5%, operating at a power consumption of 4.05 W. The parallel coupled control mechanism weights 2.14 g (including three servos). Benefit from the nonlinen inverse kinematics model of the parallel coupled control mechanism, the proposed control mechanism exhibits a roll motion range of ± 10° with an accuracy error of 0.8° and a pitch motion range of ± 12° with an accuracy error of 0.6°. The proposed mechanical systems are beneficial to lightweight design, manufacture and assemble under stringent size, weight and power (SWaP) constraints of flapping wing micro air vehicles (FW-MAVs), and possess favorable efficiency and accuracy. Relying on the hardware control circuit and feed-back attitude control algorithm, the robot hummingbird successfully achieved untethered lifting off and reached a maximum flight altitude of 4 m in several flight tests, demonstrating that the proposed mechanical designs of the flapping robot platform effectively enhances the miniaturization and light-weighting of the hummingbird-like FW-MAVs under the conditions of meeting the propulsion and control requirements for lifting off.

The solar interfacial evaporation has a broad application prospect in the fields of steam generation and seawater desalination to deal with the global shortage of fresh-water resources. Bamboo is a great material for solar interface evaporators because of its low thermal conductivity and inherent micro-channel porous structure. In this paper, a novel bamboo-based solar interface evaporator with a bionic ripple wave surface structure has been proposed. The subsequent evaporation experiments have been conducted to investigate the salt resistance, stability and water absorption of the bionic ripple bamboo based solar interface evaporator. The results have exhibited that the bamboo's water absorption has been enhanced after carbonization modification. Besides, it should be pointed out that this bamboo-based evaporator’s evaporation rate has dropped during the prolonged simulated seawater evaporation experiment, yet it remained fairly consistent at approximately 1.626 kg·m⁻²·h⁻¹. The appearance for this experimental phenomenon is the decrease of the floatability of the evaporator constricted by the stored water body absorbed by the evaporator and the deposition of NaCl crystals at the photothermal interface. Besides, compared with the plate-structure evaporator, the salt deposition in the evaporator equipped with the bionic ripple wave surface structure is greatly improved. In regard to its advantages in low cost, environmental friendliness, good salt tolerance and high evaporation rate, the bamboo-based solar interface evaporator with a bionic ripple wave surface structure can provide a potential solution to the global problem of fresh-water shortage.

Existing control methods for humanoid robots, such as Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Reinforcement Learning (RL), generally lack the modeling and exploitation of rhythmic mechanisms. As a result, they struggle to balance stability, energy efficiency, and gait transition capability during typical rhythmic motions like walking and running. To address this limitation, we propose Walk2Run, a unified control framework inspired by biological rhythmicity. The method introduces control priors based on the frequency modulation observed in human walk–run transitions. Specifically, we extract rhythmic parameters from motion capture data to construct a Rhythm Generator grounded in Central Pattern Generator (CPG) principles, which guides the policy to produce speed-adaptive periodic motion. This rhythmic guidance is further integrated with a constrained reinforcement learning framework using barrier function optimization, enhancing training stability and output feasibility. Experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms traditional approaches across multiple metrics, achieving more natural rhythmic motion with improved energy efficiency in medium- to high-speed scenarios, while also enhancing gait stability and adaptability to the robotic platform.