Liu Pan, Cheng Bo
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
J R Soc Interface. 2017 Jul;14(132). doi: 10.1098/rsif.2017.0068.
Flying animals ranging in size from fruit flies to hummingbirds are nimble fliers with remarkable rotational manoeuvrability. The degrees of manoeuvrability among these animals, however, are noticeably diverse and do not simply follow scaling rules of flight dynamics or muscle power capacity. As all manoeuvres emerge from the complex interactions of neural, physiological and biomechanical processes of an animal's flight control system, these processes give rise to multiple limiting factors that dictate the maximal manoeuvrability attainable by an animal. Here using functional models of an animal's flight control system, we investigate the effects of three such limiting factors, including neural and biomechanical (from limited flapping frequency) delays and muscle mechanical power, for two insect species and two hummingbird species, undergoing roll, pitch and yaw rotations. The results show that for animals with similar degree of manoeuvrability, for example, fruit flies and hummingbirds, the underlying limiting factors are different, as the manoeuvrability of fruit flies is only limited by neural delays and that of hummingbirds could be limited by all three factors. In addition, the manoeuvrability also appears to be the highest about the roll axis as it requires the least muscle mechanical power and can tolerate the largest neural delays.
从果蝇到蜂鸟等各种体型的飞行生物都是灵活的飞行者，具有非凡的旋转机动性。然而，这些动物之间的机动性程度明显不同，并非简单地遵循飞行动力学或肌肉力量能力的缩放规则。由于所有的机动动作都源于动物飞行控制系统的神经、生理和生物力学过程的复杂相互作用，这些过程产生了多个限制因素，决定了动物可达到的最大机动性。在这里，我们使用动物飞行控制系统的功能模型，研究了三种这样的限制因素的影响，包括神经和生物力学（来自有限的拍打频率）延迟以及肌肉机械功率，针对两种昆虫物种和两种蜂鸟物种，它们进行滚转、俯仰和偏航旋转。结果表明，对于机动性程度相似的动物，例如果蝇和蜂鸟，其潜在的限制因素是不同的，因为果蝇的机动性仅受神经延迟限制，而蜂鸟的机动性可能受所有三个因素限制。此外，机动性在滚转轴上似乎也是最高的，因为它需要最少的肌肉机械功率，并且能够容忍最大的神经延迟。
