Abstract
Crickets and other arthropods are evolved with numerous flow-sensitive hairs on their body. These sensory hairs have garnered interest among scientists resulting in the development of bio-inspired artificial hair-shaped flow sensors. Flow-sensitive hairs are arranged in dense arrays, both in natural and bio-inspired cases. Do the hair-sensors which occur in closely-packed settings affect each other's performance by so-called viscous coupling? Answering this question is key to the optimal arrangement of hair-sensors for future applications.
In this work viscous coupling is investigated from two angles. First, what does the existence of many hairs at close mutual distance mean for the flow profiles? How is the air-flow around a hair changed by it's neighbours proximity? Secondly, in what way do the incurred differences in air-flow profile alter the drag-torque on the hairs and their subsequent rotations? The first question is attacked both from a theoretical approach as well as by experimental investigations using particle image velocimetry to observe air flow profiles around regular arrays of millimeter sized micro-machined pillar structures. Both approaches confirm significant reductions in flow-velocity for high density hair arrays in dependence of air-flow frequency. For the second set of questions we used dedicated micro-fabricated chips consisting of artificial hair-sensors to controllably and reliably investigate viscous coupling effects between hair-sensors.
The experimental results confirm the presence of coupling effects (including secondary) between hair-sensors when placed at inter-hair distances of less than 10 hair diameters ($d$). Moreover, these results give a thorough insight into viscous coupling effects. Insight which can be used equally well to further our understanding of the biological implications of high density arrays as well as have a better base for the design of biomimetic artificial hair-sensor arrays where spatial resolution needs to be balanced by sufficiently mutually decoupled hair-sensor responses
In this work viscous coupling is investigated from two angles. First, what does the existence of many hairs at close mutual distance mean for the flow profiles? How is the air-flow around a hair changed by it's neighbours proximity? Secondly, in what way do the incurred differences in air-flow profile alter the drag-torque on the hairs and their subsequent rotations? The first question is attacked both from a theoretical approach as well as by experimental investigations using particle image velocimetry to observe air flow profiles around regular arrays of millimeter sized micro-machined pillar structures. Both approaches confirm significant reductions in flow-velocity for high density hair arrays in dependence of air-flow frequency. For the second set of questions we used dedicated micro-fabricated chips consisting of artificial hair-sensors to controllably and reliably investigate viscous coupling effects between hair-sensors.
The experimental results confirm the presence of coupling effects (including secondary) between hair-sensors when placed at inter-hair distances of less than 10 hair diameters ($d$). Moreover, these results give a thorough insight into viscous coupling effects. Insight which can be used equally well to further our understanding of the biological implications of high density arrays as well as have a better base for the design of biomimetic artificial hair-sensor arrays where spatial resolution needs to be balanced by sufficiently mutually decoupled hair-sensor responses
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Architectured Materials in Nature and Engineering |
| Editors | Yuri Estrin, Yves Bréchet, John Dunlop, Peter Fratzl |
| Place of Publication | Cham |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Chapter | 12 |
| Pages | 355-392 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-3-030-11942-3 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-11941-6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2019 |
Publication series
| Name | Springer Series in Materials Science |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Springer |
| Volume | 282 |
| ISSN (Print) | 0933-033X |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 2196-2812 |
Keywords
- hairbased flow-sensing
- viscous coupling
- crickets
- sensor-arrays
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Krijnen, G., Steinmann, T., Jaganatharaja, R. K., & Casas, J. (2019). Insect-inspired distributed flow-sensing: Fluid-mediated coupling between sensors. In Y. Estrin, Y. Bréchet, J. Dunlop, & P. Fratzl (Eds.), Architectured Materials in Nature and Engineering (pp. 355-392). (Springer Series in Materials Science; Vol. 282). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11942-3_12