Chao Li-Ming, Jia Laibing, Wang Siyuan, Liberzon Alexander, Ravi Sridhar, Couzin Iain D, Li Liang
Department of Collective Behaviour, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz 78464, Germany.
Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Konstanz 78464, Germany.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Feb 17;3(3):pgae073. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae073. eCollection 2024 Mar.
Understanding how animals swim efficiently and generate high thrust in complex fluid environments is of considerable interest to researchers in various fields, including biology, physics, and engineering. However, the influence of often-overlooked perturbations on swimming fish remains largely unexplored. Here, we investigate the propulsion generated by oscillating tailbeats with superimposed rhythmic perturbations of high frequency and low amplitude. We reveal, using a combination of experiments in a biomimetic fish-like robotic platform, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and theoretical analysis, that rhythmic perturbations can significantly increase both swimming efficiency and thrust production. The introduction of perturbations increases pressure-induced thrust, while reduced phase lag between body motion and the subsequent fluid dynamics response improves swimming efficiency. Moreover, our findings suggest that beneficial perturbations are sensitive to kinematic parameters, resolving previous conflicts regarding the effects of such perturbations. Our results highlight the potential benefits of introducing perturbations in propulsion generators, providing potential hypotheses for living systems and inspiring the design of artificial flapping-based propulsion systems.
了解动物如何在复杂流体环境中高效游动并产生高推力，这在包括生物学、物理学和工程学等各个领域的研究人员中引起了相当大的兴趣。然而，常常被忽视的扰动对游动鱼类的影响在很大程度上仍未得到探索。在此，我们研究了叠加有高频低幅节律性扰动的摆动尾鳍产生的推进力。我们通过在仿生鱼形机器人平台上进行实验、计算流体动力学模拟以及理论分析相结合的方法揭示，节律性扰动能够显著提高游动效率和推力产生。扰动的引入增加了压力诱导的推力，而身体运动与随后流体动力学响应之间相位滞后的减小提高了游动效率。此外，我们的研究结果表明有益的扰动对运动学参数敏感，解决了此前关于此类扰动影响的争议。我们的结果突出了在推进发生器中引入扰动的潜在益处，为生物系统提供了潜在假设，并为基于人工扑翼的推进系统设计提供了灵感。
