Kinematics, Power, and Optimization in Hovering Insect Flight

Submitted for the DFD05 Meeting of The American Physical Society Kinematics, Power, and Optimization in Hovering Insect Flight GORDON BERMAN, Cornell University, Dept. of Physics, Z. JANE WANG, Cornell University, Dept. of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics — Insects are graceful and varied locomotors – flying, darting, and hovering with remarkable ease. But are they efficient? By determining the forces acting on a wing for a prescribed motion via a quasi-steady model of fluid forces on a thin plate, we run optimization algorithms to find the optimal wing motion that an insect can make. A common belief is that animals move in a way that minimizes their metabolic cost. We test this hypothesis by comparing the results of our optimization with empirically measured data. Gordon Berman Cornell University, Dept. of Physics Date submitted: 29 Jul 2005 Electronic form version 1.4