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All Articles Tagged As: locomotion
 | The National Science Foundation has a Physics of Living program that funds research projects at the interface of biology, mathematical modeling, physics, and engineering. NSF has awarded Sunghwan Jung, principal investigator, along with Jake Socha, both assistant professors of engineering science and mechanics, and Pavlos Vlachos, professor of mechanical engineering, a little over a half a million dollars to investigate the water entry and exit problems that are apparent in engineering mechanics based on a better understanding of biology. ...> Full Article |
Researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University have engineered a soft autonomous robot that moves via peristalsis, crawling across surfaces by contracting segments of its body, much like an earthworm.
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Biologists identify new behavior in two species and engineers design robot that begins replicate it.
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 | American researchers have created a robotic jellyfish, named Robojelly, which not only exhibits characteristics ideal to use in underwater search and rescue operations, but could, theoretically at least, never run out of energy thanks to it being fueled by hydrogen. ...> Full Article |
Shark skin has long been known to improve the fish's swimming performance by reducing drag, but now George Lauder and Johannes Oeffner from Harvard University show that in addition, the skin generates thrust, giving the fish an extra boost. The duo also discovered that Speedo's shark skin-inspired Fastskin® FS II fabric surface does not improve swimming speed, although they point out that the figure hugging costumes probably enhance performance in other ways.
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 | By figuring out how butterflies flutter among flowers with amazing grace and agility, researchers hope to help build small airborne robots that can mimic those maneuvers. ...> Full Article |
 | A UC Berkeley study of how lizards use their tails when leaping through the trees shows that they swing the tail upward to avoid pitching forward after a stumble. Theropod dinosaurs ? the ancestors of birds - may have done the same. A robot model confirms the value of an actively controlled tail, demonstrating that adding a tail can stabilize robots on uneven terrain and after unexpected falls ? critical to successful search and rescue operations. ...> Full Article |
Engineers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University have developed a robot that mimics the graceful motions of jellyfish so precisely that it has been named Robojelly. Developed for the Office of Naval Research in 2009, this vehicle was designed to conduct ocean underwater surveillance, enabling it potentially to detect chemical spills, monitor the presence of ships and submarines, and observe the migration of schools of fish.
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Researchers have developed a tank-like robot that has the ability to scale smooth walls, opening up a series of applications ranging from inspecting pipes, buildings, aircraft and nuclear power plants to deployment in search and rescue operations.
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University of Tennessee professor Mingjun Zhang and his team have made significant findings about the swimming and attachment of the microorganism Giardia. The findings can aid in designs for drug discovery and underwater vehicles.
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Tiny aerial vehicles are being developed with innovative flapping wings based on those of real-life insects.Incorporating micro-cameras, these revolutionary insect-size vehicles will be suitable for many different purposes ranging from helping in emergency situations considered too dangerous for people to enter, to covert military surveillance missions.
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 | Researchers have been examining the diverse behaviors of caterpillars to find solutions for the new generation of search and rescue soft robots. ...> Full Article |
 | A research study in which the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid is participating has found evidence that suggests that the key to locomotion in snails stems from the animal's complex muscle movements, and not from its mucus, as had been previously thought. This finding could open the door to the construction of robots which could imitate this form of propulsion. ...> Full Article |
 | Nematodes, microscopic worms, are making engineers look twice at their ability to exhibit the "Cheerios effect" when they move in a collective motion. ...> Full Article |
 | What if trains, planes, and automobiles all were powered simply by the air through which they move? Moreover, what if their exhaust and byproducts helped the environment? Well, such an energy-efficient, self-propelling mechanism already exists in nature. The salp, a smallish, barrel-shaped organism that resembles a kind of streamlined jellyfish, gets everything it needs from the ocean waters to feed and propel itself. ...> Full Article |
 | A Virginia Tech engineer and Tufts biologists have shown that a caterpillar's gut slides forward in advance of the surrounding tissues -- "unlike any form of legged locomotion previously reported and represents a new feature in our emerging understanding of crawling. ...> Full Article |
 | The sight of a cockroach scurrying for cover may be nauseating, but the insect is also a biological and engineering marvel, and is providing researchers at Oregon State University with what they call "bioinspiration" in a quest to build the world's first legged robot that is capable of running effortlessly over rough terrain. ...> Full Article |
 | Living beings and inanimate phenomena may have more in common than previously thought. ...> Full Article |
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