IDBR: Instrument development for three-dimensional fluid flow measurements of freely-flying animals

IDBR：自由飞行动物三维流体流动测量仪器的研制飞行和滑翔动物，包括昆虫、鸟类、蝙蝠，甚至蜥蜴和蛇，在受到环境因素干扰时，具有执行快速机动和保持飞行稳定的显着能力。 这些能力形成了各种生态学上重要的飞行行为的基础，包括逃离捕食者，收集食物和竞争配偶。为了全面了解动物的飞行稳定性和控制，需要对自由飞行的动物进行综合实验，以应对飞行中的扰动或产生自我激励的动作，并要求对自由飞行动物周围产生的三维流动进行量化。本项目将克服现有技术的局限性，开发一种新的断层测速技术，用于测量自由飞行动物周围的三维流体流动。 这种新方法的目的是提供超过五个数量级的提高计算效率，提高流场测量精度，并增加易用性。一旦开发完成，该技术和相关的方法和分析工具将免费分发给生物和工程科学界。该项目将为全面研究动物空中运动所需的实验和仪器技术提供变革性的飞跃。这些新工具将使人们能够研究飞行动力学和迷人的空中行为，这些行为迄今为止一直难以捉摸或知之甚少，并最终有助于回答生态和进化问题。在这里开发的三维流动成像的进步也将有助于生物学的其他领域和超越，影响众多的研究领域，涉及流体力学。将开发的工具作为开放源码软件广泛传播，将为研究人员提供广泛的使用机会，并为可持续发展提供一个平台。拟议的工作包括在多个层面开展教育和外联工作。在大学一级，这里开发的材料将作为动物运动新课程的基础，并将支持在生物和工程科学的界面上开发一个大学范围的研究项目。此外，该项目还将通过与资源不足的公立学校教师合作，开发新颖的课程，以捕捉学生想象力的方式将生物学和工程学结合起来，从而支持中小学教育。这一努力的成果将通过娱乐性的、可免费获得的录像在国内和国际上传播。

IDBR: Instrument development for three-dimensional fluid flow measurements of freely-flying animalsFlying and gliding animals, including insects, birds, bats, and even lizards and snakes, have remarkable abilities for executing rapid maneuvers and for maintaining flight stability when perturbed by environmental factors. These capabilities form the basis of a wide variety of ecologically important flight behaviors, including escaping from predators, gathering food, and competing for mates. A comprehensive understanding of animal flight stability and control requires integrated experiments on freely flying animals responding to in-flight perturbations or generating self-motivated maneuvers, and demands quantification of the resulting three-dimensional flow around the free-flying animal.Overcoming limitations of existing technologies, this project will develop a novel tomographic velocimetry technique for measuring three-dimensional fluid flow around freely flying animals. The aims for this new method are to provide more than five-orders-of-magnitude improvement in computational efficiency, improved flow field measurement accuracy, and an increased ease of use. Once developed, the technique and associated methodology and analysis tools will be freely distributed to the biological and engineering sciences communities.This project will provide a transformative leap in the experimentation and instrumentation technology required to comprehensively investigate animal aerial locomotion. The new tools will enable the investigation of flight dynamics and fascinating aerial behaviors that so far have been elusive or poorly understood, and could ultimately help to answer ecological and evolutionary questions. The advancements in three-dimensional flow imaging developed here will also contribute to other areas of biology and beyond, impacting numerous research areas that touch upon fluid mechanics. The broader dissemination of the developed tools as an open-source software will provide wide accessibility to researchers and offer a platform for sustainable development. The proposed work includes educational and outreach efforts at multiple levels. At the university level, the material developed here will serve as a basis for new courses on animal locomotion and will support the development of a university-wide research program at the interface of the biological and engineering sciences. Moreover, this project will support primary and secondary level education by working with public school teachers in under-resourced classrooms to develop novel lessons that integrate biology and engineering in a way that captures student imaginations. The results of this effort will be disseminated nationally and internationally via entertaining, freely accessible videos.