Aerodynamic Mechanisms of Animal Flight

无论是蜿蜒穿过高山草甸，跨越大陆迁移，还是在垃圾桶周围盘旋，昆虫都表现出令人印象深刻的空气动力学敏捷性。尽管航空科学已经足够复杂，可以设计出客机、航天飞机和隐形战斗机，但科学家们对使微小昆虫能够飞行和机动的空气动力学机制的了解才刚刚开始。该研究计划建立在最近的发现基础上，使用各种实验和理论技术来构建动物飞行的综合理论。在这项研究中使用的技术包括三维高速摄像，它是可能的，以捕捉复杂的翅膀运动的微小昆虫，如果蝇，因为他们积极转向和机动。这项研究还使用了一个巨大的机器人模型，扑动昆虫翅膀，浸泡在一个3吨重的矿物油罐中。通过在大型机器人上“重播”真实的昆虫的翅膀和身体运动，研究人员可以直接测量扑翼产生的气流和力。通过这样的实验，不仅可以确定昆虫是如何设法留在空中的，而且可以确定它们是如何小心地操纵空气动力来主动转向和机动的。虽然以前关于昆虫飞行的许多工作都集中在少数物种上，但这项研究将研究昆虫使用的空气动力学机制如何随身体大小，翅膀形状和飞行速度而变化。由于气流的物理性质会随着尺度的变化而变化，因此，这种广泛的比较分析对于构建昆虫飞行的综合理论是必要的。昆虫是地球上最多样化的生物群体之一，它们的飞行行为在其非凡的成功中起着核心作用。因此，通过更清晰地了解它们是如何飞行的，这项研究将极大地扩展我们对这一生态和农业重要动物群体的理解。此外，就像复杂的天气系统一样，预测扑翼产生的力和流的复杂模式是重要且具有挑战性的流体力学领域的计算机模拟的一个具有挑战性的基准-物理学的分支决定了空气动力学，热流，天气和全球变暖等多种现象。通过对复杂流动问题的解决方案进行实验验证，这项研究将帮助世界各地的数学家提高计算机模型的准确性。此外，在这项研究中收集到的关于扑翼空气动力学的知识将为航空工业提供新的和创造性的设计概念。昆虫空气动力学和感觉生理学的经验教训已经被用于小型自动飞行器的设计，其潜在应用包括搜索和救援行动以及行星探索。通过对扑翼飞行空气动力学的更全面的理论，这项研究将为工程师提供一个有用的理论体系，用于开发新的飞机。

Whether winding through alpine meadows, migrating across continents, or circling garbage cans, insects display impressive aerodynamic agility. Although the science of aeronautics is sophisticated enough to design airliners, space shuttles, and stealth fighters, scientists are only just beginning to understand the aerodynamic mechanisms that enable tiny insects to fly and maneuver. This research program builds upon recent discoveries using a variety of experimental and theoretical techniques to construct a comprehensive theory of animal flight. The techniques used in this investigation include three-dimensional high speed videography, with which it is possible to capture the complex wing motions of tiny insects such as fruit flies as they actively steer and maneuver. The research also employs a giant robotic model of flapping insect wings, immersed in a 3 ton tank of mineral oil. By 'replaying' the wing and body motion of real insects on the large robot, the researchers can directly measure the flows and forces created by flapping wings. Through such experiments it will be possible to determine not simply how insects manage to stay in the air, but how they carefully manipulate aerodynamic forces to actively steer and maneuver. Whereas much previous work on insect flight has focused on a small number of species, this research will investigate how the aerodynamic mechanisms used by insects vary with body size, wing shape, and flight speed. Because the physics of air flow can change with scale, this broad comparative analysis is necessary to construct a comprehensive theory of insect flight.Insects are among the most diverse groups of organisms on the planet, and their flight behavior plays a central role in their extraordinary success. Thus, by forging a clearer picture of how they fly, this research will greatly extend our understanding of this ecologically and agriculturally important group of animals. In addition, just as with complex weather systems, predicting the complex patterns of forces and flows created by flapping wings represents a challenging benchmark for computer simulations in the important and challenging field of Fluid Mechanics - the branch of Physics that determines such diverse phenomena as aerodynamics, heat flow, weather, and global warming. By providing experimental verification of the solutions to complicated flow problems, this research will help mathematicians around the world improve the accuracy of their computer models. Further, knowledge gathered in this study on the aerodynamics of flapping wings will provide new and creative design concepts for the aeronautics industry. Lessons from insect aerodynamics and sensory physiology are already being used in the design of small autonomous air vehicles, whose potential applications include search and rescue operations and planetary exploration. By moving towards a more comprehensive theory of flapping flight aerodynamics, this research will present engineers with a useful body of theory for the development of novel aircraft.