Insects in Free Flight: Experiments, Computations, and Mathematical Analysis

昆虫飞行是一个由多种相互作用的因素组成的复杂系统。尽管最近在理解潜在的非定常空气动力学方面取得了进展，这与传统的空气动力学显著不同，但人们对昆虫如何执行飞行动作知之甚少，对决定自然飞行中各种行为的主要机制也知之甚少。我们提出了一种研究昆虫飞行的综合方法，它包括自由飞行昆虫的高分辨率运动学，翅膀和身体运动的空气动力学分析，以及这些数据的动力系统分析，这将导致降阶模型。具体地说，我们提出了三项高风险的初步研究：1)开发3D飞行数据的自动跟踪技术，这对自由飞行行为的跨物种比较的空气动力学和统计分析至关重要；2)首次通过空气动力学分析和直接测量在自由飞行中提供内部肌肉与外部可见之间的直接联系；3)对自由飞行的稳定性进行新的数学分析，并建立数据驱动的降阶模型。我们预计，这种史无前例的大型实验数据集和数值分析的整合将改变昆虫飞行的研究。我们的工作将为研究与动物运动的效率、稳定性和控制有关的基本问题提供新的工具。我们开发的技术、算法和程序将通过我们的网站分发并提供给研究社区。该小组将继续其外展活动，包括公开讲座、提供幼儿至12年级的教学支援，以及举办工作坊。

Insect flight is a complex system comprised of multiple interacting elements. Despite recent progress in understanding the underlying unsteady aerodynamics, which are notably different from conventional aerodynamics, relatively little is known about how insects execute flight maneuvers and far less is known about the main mechanisms that determine the diverse behaviors seen in natural flight. We propose an integrated approach to the study of insect flight that incorporates high resolution kinematics of freely flying insects, aerodynamic analysis of wing and body motions, and dynamical systems analysis of these data that will lead to reduced order models. Specifically, we propose three high risk pilot studies: 1) develop automated tracking techniques for 3D flight data that will be essential for aerodynamic and statistical analysis of cross-species comparison of free flight behaviors, 2) provide for the first time a direct connection between the internal muscles to the external observables in free flight through aerodynamics analysis and direct measurements, and 3) perform novel mathematical analysis of stability of free flight and build tools for constructing data-driven reduced order models.We expect that this unprecedented integration of large experimental data sets and numerical analyses will transform research on insect flight. Our work will provide new tools to investigate fundamental issues relating to efficiency, stability, and control in animal locomotion. The techniques, algorithms and routines we develop will be distributed and made available to the research community through our web sites. The PI's will continue with their outreach activities which include: giving public lectures, providing K-12 teaching support, and organizing workshops.