The highly efficient and agile water-surface locomotion of water striders has attracted substantial research attention. Compared with imitating the horizontal rowing motion, imitating the jumping capability of water striders is much more challenging because the strong interaction in the jumping process easily causes the robot to sink. This study focuses on designing a miniature robot capable of continuously jumping on the water surface. A spring-based actuating mechanism is proposed to produce a large jumping force. The center of gravity of the robot is carefully designed to allow the robot to jump on the surface continuously and smoothly. The influences of several critical factors, including the area of the supporting legs, the spring stiffness, the jumping angle, etc on jumping ability are analyzed by means of dynamic simulation and experiments. The jumping performance under different jumping angles is tested. The fabricated robot weighs approximately 10.2 g and can continuously jump on water with a maximum leap height and length of 120 and 410 mm, respectively. This study helps researchers understand the jumping mechanism of water striders and provides a reference for developing water-jumping robots that can perform various aquatic tasks in the future.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-3190/11/6/066002 | DOI Listing |
Insect Sci
January 2025
Functional Morphology and Biomechanics, Institute of Zoology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.
Water striders inhabit the elastic surface tension film of water, sharing their environment with other aquatic organisms. Their survival relies heavily on swift maneuverability and navigation around floating obstacles, which aids in the exploration of their habitat and in escaping from potential threats. Their high agility is strongly based on the ability to execute precise turns, enabling effective directional control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Biol Sci
December 2024
Laboratory of Integrative Animal Ecology, Department of New Biology, DGIST, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Laws of physics shape adaptations to locomotion, and semiaquatic habitats of water striders provide opportunities to explore adaptations to locomotion on water surface. The hydrodynamics of typical propelling with symmetrical strokes of midlegs is well understood, but the subsequent passive sliding on surface has not been explored. We hypothesized that morphological and behavioural adaptations to sliding vary by body size.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Rep
November 2024
Department of Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Finance and Administration, Prague, Czech Republic.
In this paper, we introduce an improved water strider algorithm designed to solve the inverse form of the Burgers-Huxley equation, a nonlinear partial differential equation. Additionally, we propose a physics-informed neural network to address the same inverse problem. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the new algorithm and conduct a comparative analysis, we compare the results obtained using the improved water strider algorithm against those derived from the original water strider algorithm, a genetic algorithm, and a physics-informed neural network with three hidden layers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLangmuir
November 2024
SEU-FEI Nano-Pico Center, Key Laboratory of MEMS of Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China.
Superhydrophobic materials have been widely applied in oil-water separation, self-cleaning, antifouling, and drag reduction; however, their role in liquid evaporation and drying remains unexplored. Inspired by the microstructure of the nonwetting legs of water striders, we designed a low-adhesion superhydrophobic cylindrical barrel (CB) derived from stainless-steel mesh (SSM) to enhance liquid thermal evaporation and drying. The CB was created by hydrothermally depositing zinc oxide (ZnO) with multilevel morphologies onto metal wires, followed by modification with low-surface-energy stearic acid (SA).
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