Research line
Biofluid mechanics
(PI: Florian Muijres) - Insects, birds and bats have amazing flight capabilities, and especially in manoeuvrability natural flyers outperform any human-made flying device.
To unravel how natural flyers achieve this, we study the biomechanics, aerodynamic and control of animal flight (see publications). Our research requires a highly interdisciplinary research approach, and so our scientific team consists of biologists, physicists, and engineers (see team members).
For our research, we use mosquitoes, bumblebees, and pied flycatchers as our model organisms. These animals are not only highly specialized flyers, but the flycatcher is also an excellent model organism for movement ecology research, and mosquitoes and bumblebees are of high societal relevance. Bumblebees are important pollinators in both nature and agriculture, whereas the mosquito is the most dangerous animal in the world. Therefore, our research consists of both primary and more applied research.
Our primary research focusses on biomechanics, aerodynamic and flight control of natural flyers. Examples of our primary research:
- How mosquitoes evade a swatting hand
- The aerodynamics of accelerating insect wings
- Efficient gliding flight in Morpho butterflies
- The sophisticated flight control of landing bumblebees
- How wing molt affect escape performance in a flying songbird
Our applied work is aimed at providing bio-inspiration for human-engineered flyers, and to address societal issues with respect to natural pollination and malaria mosquito control. Examples of our applied work:
- Developing a highly-efficient mosquito trap
- A highly-manoeuvrable insect-inspired flapping-wing drone
- How bumblebees land in LED-illuminated greenhouses
Current projects:
| * | Biomechanics of mosquito flight (Vidi project F.T. Muijres) |
|---|---|
| * | Diversification of flight kinematics and morphology in Diptera (PostDoc project C.Y.A. le Roy) |
| * | How to catch a mosquito? The flight response of mosquitoes to odors and air gusts produced by odor-baited traps (PostDoc project A. Cribellier) |
| * | Bumblebees in the spotlight (PhD project L. de Vries) |
| * | Flight kinematic and behavioural study of European pied flycatcher (PostDoc project B. Yu) |
| * | Hitchhikers guide to using drones and auditory cues to scare flying moths to death in greenhouses (PhD project of D.L. Jansen) |
| * | In-flight mating in sympatric swarms of Anopheles malaria mosquito and their hybrids (PostDoc project of B.S. Poda) |
| * | Fish detection using electrical impedance measurements (PostDoc project of L.J. Nowak) |
| * | Unsteady aerodynamics of Dipteran flight (PhD project I. Govindasamy) |
| * | In-flight host detection of malaria mosquitoes (M. Lankheet and J.L. van Leeuwen) |